look like him!" Bob declared.

"Like whom? What the deuce is the mystery?"

"What--why, of course you're the most interested party and the only
Little Riversite that don't know about it, seh!"

After all, there was some compensation for early rising. Bob expanded
with the privilege of being the first to break the news.

"If you'd come yesterday you'd have seen him. He went by the noon train,"
he said, and proceeded with the story of Prather.

Jack had never heard of the man before and was obviously uninterested. He
did not seem to care if a dozen doubles came to town.

"Oh, yes, there's another thing concerning you," Bob continued. "I was so
interested in telling you about Prather that I near forgot it. A
swell-looking fellow--says he's a doctor and he's got New York written
all over him--came in yesterday particularly to see you."

Though it was a saying in Little Rivers that nobody ever found Jack at a
loss, he started perceptibly now. His fingers worked nervously on the
reins and he bit his lips in irritation.

"He was asking a lot of questions about you," Bob added.

By this time Jack had summoned back his smile. He did not seem to mind if
a dozen doctors came to town at the same time as a dozen doubles.

"Did you tell him that I had a cough--kuh-er?" he asked, casually.

"Why, no! I said you could thrash your weight in wildcats and he says,
'Well, he'll have to, yet!' and then shut up as if he'd overspoke
himself--and I judge that he ain't the kind that does that often. But
say, Jack," Bob demanded, in the alarm of local partisanship which
apprehends that it may unwittingly have served an outside interest, "did
you want us to dope it out that you were an invalid? We ain't been
getting you in wrong, I hope?"

"Not a bit!" answered Jack with a reassuring slap on Bob's shoulder. "Was
his name Bennington?"

"Yes, that's it."

"Well," said Jack thoughtfully and with a return of his annoyance, "he
will find me at home when he calls." And P.D. knew that the reins were
still held in listless hands as he turned down the side street toward the
new ranch.

Firio was feeling like an astrologer who had lost faith in his crystal
ball. An interrogation had taken the place of his confident "_Si, si_"
of desert understanding of the mind of his patron. Jack had broken camp
with the precipitancy of one who was eager to be quit of the trail and
back at the ranch; yet he gave his young trees only a passing glance
befo