take down the answers. The young man, finding the only chair thus
occupied, moved the Doctor's books aside, and sat down on the table
beside him.

The questions were repetitions of those already asked, but more in
detail, and thoroughly practical in their nature. The answers were
given straightforwardly and unconcernedly, as if the subject was not
worth the trouble of invention or evasion. It was difficult to say
whether questioner or answerer took least pleasure in the
interrogation, which might have referred to the concerns of a third
party. Both, however, spoke disrespectfully of their common family,
with almost an approach to sympathetic interest.

"You might as well be going now," said the Doctor, finally rising. "You
can stop at the fonda, about two miles further on, and get your supper
and bed, if you like."

The young man slipped from the table, and lounged to the door. The
Doctor put his hands in his pockets and followed him. The young man,
as if in unconscious imitation, had put HIS hands in his pockets also,
and looked at him.

"I'll hear from you, then, when you are in San Jose?" said Dr. West,
looking past him into the grain, with a slight approach to constraint
in his indifference.

"Yes--if that's agreed upon," returned the young man, pausing on the
threshold. A faint sense of some purely conventional responsibility in
their position affected them both. They would have shaken hands if
either had offered the initiative. A sullen consciousness of
gratuitous rectitude in the selfish mind of the father; an equally
sullen conviction of twenty years of wrong in the son, withheld them
both. Unpleasantly observant of each other's awkwardness, they parted
with a feeling of relief.

Dr. West closed the door, lit his lamp, and, going to his desk, folded
the paper containing the memoranda he had just written and placed it in
his pocket. Then he summoned his foreman. The man entered, and
glanced around the room as if expecting to see the Doctor's guest still
there.

"Tell one of the men to bring round 'Buckeye.'"

The foreman hesitated. "Going to ride to-night, sir?"

"Certainly; I may go as far as Saltonstall's. If I do, you needn't
expect me back till morning."

"Buckeye's mighty fresh to-night, boss. Regularly bucked his saddle
clean off an hour ago, and there ain't a man dare exercise him."

"I'll bet he don't buck his saddle off with me on it," said the Doctor,
grimly. "Bring him al