this time feebly and vacantly; the eyes were
staring vaguely around.

"What's matter? What's all about?" said the man, thickly.

"You've had a fall. Think a moment. Where do you live?"

Again the lips moved, but this time only to emit a confused, incoherent
murmur. Dr. Duchesne looked grave, but recovered himself quickly.

"That will do. Leave him alone now," he said brusquely to the others.

But Josephine lingered.

"He spoke well enough just now," she said eagerly. "Did you hear what he
said?"

"Not exactly," said the doctor, abstractedly, gazing at the man.

"He said, 'You'll have to kill me first,'" said Josephine, slowly.

"Humph;" said the doctor, passing his hand backwards and forwards before
the man's eyes to note any change in the staring pupils.

"Yes," continued Josephine, gravely. "I suppose," she added, cautiously,
"he was thinking of the operation--of what you had just done to him?"

"What I had done to him? Oh, yes!"

CHAPTER II

Before noon the next day it was known throughout Burnt Ridge Valley that
Dr. Duchesne had performed a difficult operation upon an unknown man,
who had been picked up unconscious from a fall, and carried to Burnt
Ridge Ranch. But although the unfortunate man's life was saved by the
operation, he had only momentarily recovered consciousness--relapsing
into a semi-idiotic state, which effectively stopped the discovery
of any clue to his friends or his identity. As it was evidently an
ACCIDENT, which, in that rude community--and even in some more civilized
ones--conveyed a vague impression of some contributary incapacity on the
part of the victim, or some Providential interference of a retributive
character, Burnt Ridge gave itself little trouble about it. It is
unnecessary to say that Mr. and Mrs. Forsyth gave themselves and
Josephine much more. They had a theory and a grievance. Satisfied from
the first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who submitted to
have a hole bored in his head in order to foist himself upon the ranch,
they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy between
Josephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, as
he had already in the spare bedroom. "Didn't all that yer happen THE
VERY NIGHT she pretended to go for Stephen--eh?" said Mrs. Forsyth.
"Tell me that! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggy
to bring him here, as that sneaking doctor let out--eh? Looks mighty
curious, don't it?" s