he muttered darkly to the old man. But although
that gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would scarcely have
submitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as the price of
insuring comfortable dependency, he had no doubt others were base enough
to do it; and lent a willing ear to his wife's suspicions.

Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further.
Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disappointment at
the incomplete results of the operation. He had saved the man's life,
but as yet not his reason. There was still hope, however, for the
diagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favorable progress. It
was a most interesting case. He would watch it carefully, and as soon
as the patient could be removed would take him to the county hospital,
where, under his own eyes, the poor fellow would have the benefit of
the latest science and the highest specialists. Physically, he was doing
remarkably well; indeed, he must have been a fine young chap, free from
blood taint or vicious complication, whose flesh had healed like an
infant's. It should be recorded that it was at this juncture that Mrs.
Forsyth first learnt that a SILVER PLATE let into the artful stranger's
skull was an adjunct of the healing process! Convinced that this
infamous extravagance was part and parcel of the conspiracy, and was
only the beginning of other assimilations of the Forsyths' metallic
substance; that the plate was probably polished and burnished with
a fulsome inscription to the doctor's skill, and would pass into the
possession and adornment of a perfect stranger, her rage knew no bounds.
He or his friends ought to be made to pay for it or work it out! In vain
it was declared that a few dollars were all that was found in the man's
pocket, and that no memoranda gave any indication of his name, friends,
or history beyond the suggestion that he came from a distance. This was
clearly a part of the conspiracy! Even Josephine's practical good
sense was obliged to take note of this singular absence of all record
regarding him, and the apparent obliteration of everything that might be
responsible for his ultimate fate.

Homeless, friendless, helpless, and even nameless, the unfortunate man
of twenty-five was thus left to the tender mercies of the mistress of
Burnt Ridge Ranch, as if he had been a new-born foundling laid at her
door. But this mere claim of weakness was not all; it was supplemented
by a