neighbours began to gather. George and his mother explained how Peter
had exhausted himself walking two miles from the country that hot
morning, how he had entered the office, tottering with fatigue, and had
fallen in the chair in a fainting condition. Everything was plausible
until a neighbour woman, eager to be the centre of attention for a
second, cried: "Yes, we all see him come more'n an hour ago; and when
he begin to let out the yells we says to each other, 'THERE! George
has got his first patient, sure!' An' we all kind of waited to see if
he'd come out better."

The doctor looked at her sharply: "More than an hour ago?" he said.
"You heard cries?"

"Yes, more'n a good hour ago. Yes, we all heard him yell, jist once,
good and loud!" she said.

The doctor turned to George. Before he could speak his mother
intervened.

"That was our Kate done the yellin'," she said. "She was scart crazy
from the start. He jest come in, and set in the chair and he's been
there ever since."

"You didn't give him any treatment, Holt?" asked the doctor.

Again Mrs. Holt answered: "Never touched him! Hadn't even got time to
get his table open. Wa'n't nothing he could 'a' done for him anyway.
Peter was good as gone when he got here. His fool folks never ought
'a' let him out this hot day, sick as he was."

The doctor looked at George, at his mother, long at Peter. "He surely
was too sick to walk that far in this heat," he said. "But to make
sure, I'll look him over. George, you help me. Clear the room of all
but these two men."

HE began minutely examining Peter's heart region. Then he rolled him
over and started to compress his lungs. Long white streaks marked the
puffy red of the swollen, dropsical flesh. The doctor examined the
length of the body, and looked straight into George Holt's eyes.

"No use," he said. "Bill, go to the 'phone in my office, and tell
Coroner Smith to get here from Hartley as soon as he can. All that's
left to do here is to obey the law, and have a funeral. Better some of
the rest of you go tell his folks. I've done all I can do. It's up to
the Coroner now. The rest of you go home, and keep still till he
comes."

When he and George were left alone he said tersely: "Of course you and
your mother are lying. You had this man stripped, he did cry out, and
he did die from the pain of the treatment you tried to give him, in his
condition. By the way, where's your wife? This i