!"

"Some doctor, that," laughed the patient. "Does a man good just to hear
him talk. Most of them go away leaving the patient guessing whether the
next visit will be from them or the undertaker--and rather hoping for
the latter. But with this fellow the professional man is swallowed up
in the human being--he fairly radiates life."

The other smiled as he settled himself into the chair near the bedside,
vacated by the physician.

"Yes, he is a great doctor. Stands well toward the head of his
profession. We have no finer in the Northwest." Young Carmody's face
clouded.

"But how am I to pay for all this? It is all well enough for you to
laugh, but to me it is a serious matter. I----"

"Young man, you are my guest. I don't know who you are, nor where you
came from, but, by gad, I know a man when I see one! From the time you
sat in that game to save that poor young fool from being fleeced until
you dove into that black hole and throttled that skunk----"

"They caught him, did they?"

"Caught him! They had to pry him loose! You have got the grip of the
devil himself. The police surgeon told me they would have to put a
whole new set of plumbing in his throat. Said he wouldn't have believed
that any living thing, short of a gorilla, could have clamped down that
hard with one hand.

"And there I had to lie pinned down and watch him go through a dead
man's pockets--it was our friend the reporter. And then he turned
around and calmly went through mine. Gad! If I'd had a gun! All the
time he kept up a run of talk, joking about the wreck and the easy
pickings it gave him.

"He was disappointed when he failed to find you--said he owed you
something for gumming his game. Well, he found you all right--and when
he gets out of the hospital he is slated for twenty years in Joliet."
The man paused and glanced at his watch.

"Bless my soul! It is after two o'clock! We will have luncheon served
here."

"It is a peculiar situation," mused the invalid. "The last thing I
remember is being in the thick of a railroad wreck, and here I wake up
in bed, with a trained nurse in the room, to find myself the guest of a
man whose name I do not even know."

"Appleton--H. D. Appleton, of Minneapolis. I am a lumberman--just
returning from the National Lumberman's Convention in Buffalo. And
yours?"

He was interrupted by a tap at the door and a couple of waiters entered
bearing trays.

CHAPTER IX

BILL GETS A JOB

After lun