blouse or the rapid panting of
her breath.

"Of that," she said, "it is hard to speak--it is useless to speak!"

"Surely not!" protested the doctor. "The cause, my dear madame, though
perhaps apparently remote from the immediate issue, is of the utmost
significance in diagnosis."

She broke in rapidly: "This is all I can tell you: he is waiting for
something which will never come. He has missed something from his life
which will never come back into it. Then why should we discuss what it
is 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 t