f up and
work. I was starved hungry, and I remember I hot-footed it proper
upstairs to his den and threw open the door." Puff! puff! went the big
stogie. "An Irish plasterer with seven kids ate that turkey, I
recollect," he completed, "and I've never kept Thanksgiving from that
day to this."

"And your grandfather?" unemotionally.

"Just the same. He was a preacher, and the choir was singing the opening
anthem at the time."

The doctor threw one thin leg over the other and stared impassively out
the single window. It faced the main street of the town.

"The doings are over for this time, I fancy," he digressed evenly. "I
see a row of bronchos tied down in front of Red's place."

Landor did not look around.

"Mary and Mrs. Burton will count them, never fear," he recalled in mock
sarcasm. "What I want to know is your opinion."

"In my opinion there's nothing to be done," said Chantry.

Landor shifted again, and again the chair groaned in mortal agony.

"I know that. What I mean is how long is it liable to be before--" he
halted and jerked his thumb over his shoulder--"before Bob and the rest
will be doing that to me?"

Chantry's gaze left the window, met the shrewd grey eyes beneath the
other's drooping lids.

"It may be a day and it may be ten years," he said.

Unconsciously Landor settled deeper into his seat. His jaws closed
tight on the stump of the stogie. Unwaveringly he returned the other's
gaze.

"You have a more definite idea than that, though," he pressed. "Tell me,
and let's have it over with."

For five seconds Chantry did not speak; but the restless black eyes
bored the other through and through, at first impersonally, as, scalpel
in hand, he would have studied a patient before the first incision in a
major operation; then, as against the other's will, a great drop of
sweat gathered on the broad forehead, personally, intimately.

"Yes, my opinion is more definite than that," he corroborated evenly. He
did not suggest that he was sorry to say what he was about to say, did
not qualify in advance by intimating that his prognosis might be wrong.
"I think the next attack will be the last. Moreover, I believe it will
come soon, very soon." Impassively as he had spoken, he produced a book
of rice paper from his pocket and a rubber pouch of tobacco. The long
fingers were skilful, and a cigarette came into being as under a
machine. Without another word he lit a match and waited until the flame
was