Smiles | Page 3

in the scene; but, for the moment, the man was out of
tune with the vibrant color harmonies, and he frankly stated the reason
in his next words, which were addressed to his unlovely canine
companion, whose sagacity more than compensated for his appealing
homeliness.
"Mike, we're lost!"
City born and bred though he was, the man took a not unjustifiable
pride in the woodcraft which he had acquired during many vacations
spent in the wilds; hence it was humiliating to have to admit that
fact--even to his dog. To be sure, the fastnesses of the border
Cumberlands were new to him; but his vanity was hurt by the
realization that he had tramped for nearly an hour through serried ranks
of ancient trees and crowding thickets of laurel and
rhododendron--which seemed to take a personal delight in impeding
the progress of a "furriner"--and over craggy rocks, only to find, at the
end of that time, that he was entering one end of a short ravine from the
other end of which he had started with the vague purpose of seeking the
path by which he had climbed from the valley village.
Moreover, a subtle change was taking place in the air. Faint breezes,
the sighing heralds of advancing evening, were now beginning to steal
slowly out from the picturesque, seamed rocks of the ravine and from

behind each gnarled or stately tree, with an unmistakable warning.
There was clearly but one logical course for him to pursue--head
straight up the mountainside until he should arrive at some
commanding clearing whence he could recover his lost bearings and
establish some landmarks for a fresh start downward. With his square
jaw set in a decisive manner, the man picked up his gun, threw back his
heavy shoulders, and began to climb, driving his muscular body
forcibly through the underbrush.
The decision and the action were both characteristic of Donald
MacDonald, in whose Yankee veins ran the blood of a dour and
purposeful Scottish clan. Aggressive determination showed in every
lineament of his face, of which his nearest friend, Philip Bentley, had
once said, "The Great Sculptor started to carve a masterpiece, choosing
granite rather than marble as his medium, and was content to leave it
rough hewn." Every feature was strong and rugged, which gave his
countenance an expression masterful to the point of being almost surly
when it was in repose; but it was a face which caused most men--and
women over thirty--to turn for a second glance.
To-day, the effect of strength was further enhanced by a week's growth
of blue-black beard. But his eyes, agate gray and flecked with the green
of the "moss" variety, were the real touchstones of his character, and
they belied the stern lines of his mouth and chin and spoke eloquently
of a warm, kindly heart within the powerful body, a body which, to the
city dweller, suggested the fullback on a football team. Indeed, such he
had been in those days when great power counted more heavily than
speed and agility. Not but that he possessed these attributes as well, in a
degree unusual in one who tipped the scales at one hundred and ninety.
To some it seemed an inexplicable anomaly that a man of his type
should have selected, as the work to which he had dedicated his life, the
profession of medicine, and still more strange that he had become a
specialist in the diseases of children. Yet such was the case, and many a
mother, whose heartstrings were plucked by the lean fingers of Despair,
had cause to bless the almost uncanny surgical skill which his
highly-trained brain exercised through the medium of his big, spatulate,

gentle fingers.
As "Mac" had, in the old days, smashed his way through the opposing
line of blue-jerseyed giants on the football field, and as he now plowed
through the laurel and rhododendron, so had he won his way to the
forefront of the younger generation of his profession until, at the age of
thirty-five, he had become recognized as one of the most able children's
specialists in America. A "man's man," blunt of speech to the point of
often offending at first the cultured women with whom his labors
brought him into contact, he was worshipped in hundreds of homes as
an angel of mercy in strange guise, and was the idol of hundreds of
little folk to whom he had brought new health and happiness.
The toilsome upward climb brought its reward at length, and Donald's
eye caught sight of a clearing, and unmistakable signs of near-by
civilization, if a scattering mountain settlement of primitive dwellers in
that feudal country which lies half in West Virginia, half in Kentucky,
may be so designated.
No sooner had he stepped into the partially cleared