over his shoulders, after having washed and
dressed the wound. The bullet had been considerate enough to pass right
through, making all probing unnecessary. With a safety-pin she attached
his shirt sleeve to his shirt front.

"That will do," she said, "until I prepare a regular sling. And now come
out to the verandah. No; don't carry the chair. There are several on the
platform. Don't try to be polite, and remember I have already ordered
you to avoid exertion."

He followed her to the broad piazza, and sat down, drawing a deep breath
of admiration. Immediately in front ran a broad, clear stream of water;
swift, deep, transparent.

"An ideal trout stream," he said to himself.

A wide vista of rolling green fields stretched away to a range of
foothills, overtopped in the far distance by snow mountains.

"By Jove!" he cried. "This is splendid. I have seen nothing like it out
of Switzerland."

"Talking of Switzerland," said Miss Armstrong, seating herself opposite
him, "have you ever been at Thun?"

"Oh, yes."

"You stopped at the _Thunerhof_, I suppose?"

"I don't remember what it was called, but it was the largest hotel in
the place, I believe."

"That would be the _Thunerhof_," she said. "I went to a much more modest
inn, the _Falken_, and the stream that runs in front of it reminded me
of this, and made me quite lonesome for the ranch. Of course, you had
the river opposite you at the _Thunerhof_, but there the river is half a
dozen times as wide as the branch that runs past the _Falken_. I used to
sit out on the terrace watching that stream, murmuring to its
accompaniment 'Home, sweet Home.'"

"You are by way of being a traveller, then?"

"Not a traveller, Mr. Stranleigh," said the girl, laughing a little,
"but a dabbler. I took dabs of travel, like my little visit to Thun. For
more than a year I lived in Lausanne, studying my profession, and during
that time I made brief excursions here and there."

"Your profession," asked Stranleigh, with evident astonishment.

"Yes; can't you guess what it is, and why I am relating this bit of
personal history on such very short acquaintance?"

The girl's smile was beautiful.

"Don't you know Europe?" she added.

"I ought to; I'm a native."

"Then you are aware that Lausanne is a centre of medical teaching and
medical practice. I am a doctor, Mr. Stranleigh. Had your wound been
really serious, which it is not, and you had come under the care of
either physici