The Night Horseman | Page 8

that he has missed."
"To the critical mind," replied the doctor calmly, and he automatically
adjusted his glasses closer to his eyes, "nothing is without
significance."
"It is nearly dark!" she exclaimed hurriedly. "Let us ride on."
"First," he suggested, "I must tell you that before I left Elkhead I heard

a hint of some remarkable story concerning a man and a horse and a
dog. Is there anything--"
But it seemed that she did not hear. He heard a sharp, low exclamation
which might have been addressed to her horse, and the next instant she
was galloping swiftly down the slope. The doctor followed as fast as he
could, jouncing in the saddle until he was quite out of breath.

CHAPTER IV
THE CHAIN
They had hardly passed the front door of the house when they were met
by a tall man with dark hair and dark, deep-set eyes. He was tanned to
the bronze of an Indian, and he might have been termed handsome had
not his features been so deeply cut and roughly finished. His black hair
was quite long, and as the wind from the opened door stirred it, there
was a touch of wildness about the fellow that made the heart of Randall
Byrne jump. When this man saw the girl his face lighted, briefly; when
his glance fell on Byrne the light went out.
"Couldn't get the doc, Kate?" he asked.
"Not Doctor Hardin," she answered, "and I've brought Doctor Byrne
instead."
The tall man allowed his gaze to drift leisurely from head to foot of
Randall Byrne.
Then: "H'ware you, doc?" he said, and extended a big hand. It occurred
to Byrne that all these men of the mountain-desert were big; there was
something intensely irritating about their mere physical size; they threw
him continually on the defensive and he found himself making
apologies to himself and summing up personal merits. In this case there
was more direct reason for his anger. It was patent that the man did not
weight the strange doctor against any serious thoughts.

"And this," she was saying, "is Mr. Daniels. Buck, is there any
change?"
"Nothin' much," answered Buck Daniels. "Come along towards evening
and he said he was feeling kind of cold. So I wrapped him up in a rug.
Then he sat some as usual, one hand inside of the other, looking steady
at nothing. But a while ago he began getting sort of nervous."
"What did he do?"
"Nothing. I just felt he was getting excited. The way you know when
your hoss is going to shy."
"Do you want to go to your room first, doctor, or will you go in to see
him now?"
"Now," decided the doctor, and followed her down the hall and through
a door.
The room reminded the doctor more of a New England interior than of
the mountain-desert. There was a round rag rug on the floor with every
imaginable colour woven into its texture, but blended with a rude
design, reds towards the centre and blue-greys towards the edges. There
were chairs upholstered in green which looked mouse-coloured where
the high lights struck along the backs and the arms--shallow-seated
chairs that made one's knees project foolishly high and far. Byrne saw a
cabinet at one end of the room, filled with sea-shells and knicknacks,
and above it was a memorial cross surrounded by a wreath inside a
glass case. Most of the wall space thronged with engravings whose
subjects ranged from Niagara Falls to Lady Hamilton. One entire end
of the room was occupied by a painting of a neck and neck finish in a
race, and the artist had conceived the blooded racers as creatures with
tremendous round hips and mighty-muscled shoulders, while the legs
tapered to a faun-like delicacy. These animals were spread-eagled in
the most amazing fashion, their fore-hoofs reaching beyond their noses
and their rear hoofs striking out beyond the tips of the tails. The jockey
in the lead sat quite still, but he who was losing had his whip drawn and
looked like an automatic doll--so pink were his cheeks. Beside the

course, in attitudes of graceful ease, stood men in very tight trousers
and very high stocks and ladies in dresses which pinched in at the waist
and flowed out at the shoulders. They leaned upon canes or twirled
parasols and they had their backs turned upon the racetrack as if they
found their own negligent conversation far more exciting than the
breathless, driving finish.
Under the terrific action and still more terrific quiescence of this picture
lay the sick man, propped high on a couch and wrapped to the chest in
a Navajo blanket.
"Dad," said Kate Cumberland, "Doctor Hardin was not in town. I've
brought out Doctor Byrne, a newcomer."