s, and most of his nights, even, were spent upon the
trail rounding up "strays and mavericks," as Ike said, searching out
the lonely bachelor shacks, and lonelier homes where women dwelt whose
husbands' days were spent on the range, and whose nearest neighbour
might be eight or ten miles away, bringing a touch of the outer world,
and leaving a gleam of the light that he carried in his own sunny,
honest face.

And so Shock soon came to know more of the far back settlers than did
even the oldest timer; and, what was better, he began to establish
among them some sort of social life. It was Shock, for instance, that
discovered old Mrs. Hamilton and her two sons, and drove her after much
persuasion eight miles over "The Rise," past which she had not set her
foot for the nine long, sad years that had dragged out their lonely
length since her husband left her alone with her two boys of seven and
nine, to visit Mrs. Macnamara, the delicate wife of the rollicking
Irish rancher, who, seldom out of the saddle himself, had never been
able to understand the heart-hunger that only became less as her own
life ran low. It was her little family growing up about her, at once
draining her vitality but, thank God, nourishing in her heart hope and
courage, that preserved for her faith and reason. It was a great day
for the Macnamaras when their big fiend drove over their next
neighbour, Mrs. Hamilton, to make her first call.

Another result of Shock's work became apparent in the gradual
development of Loon Lake, or "The Lake," as it was most frequently
named, into a centre of social life. In the first place a school had
been established, in which Marion had been installed as teacher, and
once the children came to the village it was easier for the parents to
find their way thither.

Every week, too, The Kid and Ike found occasions to visit The Lake and
call for Shock, who made his home, for the most part, with the Old
Prospector. Every week, too, the doctor would appear to pay a visit to
his patients; but, indeed, in some way or other the doctor was being
constantly employed on cases discovered by Shock. The Macnamara's baby
with the club-foot, Scrub Kettle's girl with the spinal trouble;
Lawrence Delamere, the handsome young English lad up in "The Pass,"
whose leg, injured in a mine accident, never would heal till the doctor
had scraped the bone--these and many others owed their soundness to
Shock's prospecting powers and to the doctor's