laim. Strange what a woman will do
for love, isn't it? And to go on a forty-mile ride to save a worthless
pup's life! That's me. Think of the daughter of one of those old Virginia
homes up to a trick like that?"

"You've talked enough now."

Shirley looked up in surprise at this stern command, but Dr. Carey had
gone to the other side of the cabin and sat staring out at the river
running bank-full at the base of the little slope.

When he turned to his patient again, the old tender look was in his eyes.
Men loved Jim Shirley if they cared for him at all. And now the pathetic
hopelessness of Jim's face cut deep as Carey studied it.

"I say, Shirley, did you ever know a man back East named Thomas Smith?" he
asked.

"No. Strange name, that! Where'd you run onto it? Smith! Smith! How do you
spell it?" Jim replied indifferently.

"With a spoonful of quinine in epsom salts, taken raw, if you don't pay
attention. Now listen to me." The doctor's tone was as cheery as ever.

"Well, don't make it necessary for me to tell you when you've talked
enough."

In spite of the joking words, there was a listless hopelessness in
Shirley's voice, matching the dull, listless eyes. And Horace Carey rose
to the situation at once.

"A stranger named Thomas Smith came to the Crossing the day I came down
here. Rather a small man, with close-set, dark eyes; signed his name in a
cramped, left-handed writing. I noticed his right hand seemed a little
stiff, sort of paralyzed at the wrist. But here's the funny thing. He made
me uneasy, and he made me think of you. Could you identify him? He looked
as much like you as I look like that young darkey, Bo Peep, up at the
Jacobs House."

"None of my belongings. You are a delicate plant to be so sensitive to
strangers." Jim sighed from mental weariness more than from physical
weakness.

"I was sensitive, and when I heard Stewart call out your name in the mail
and saw this man step up as if to take the letter, I took it. And if
you'll take a brace and decide it's worth while you can have it. It's
addressed in a woman's handwriting, not a Thomas Smith style of pinching
letters out of a penholder and squeezing them off the pen point. Lie down
there, man!"

For Jim was sitting up, listening intently. With trembling fingers he took
the letter and read it eagerly. Then he looked at Carey with eyes in which
listlessness had given place to determination.

"Doctor, I was ready to throw up the game fiv