d analyze it, yes, a piece of brain tissue
and find all the blood-vessels, but not what a man was thinking, can
you? Until you can take a precipitate of his thoughts--the very
thoughts he is unconscious of himself--and put them under a microscope,
why, there must be a lot of guesswork about the source of all
unconventional human actions."

Jack laughed over his invasion of psychology; and when he laughed in a
certain way the impulse to join him was strong, as Mary first found on
the pass. So the doctor laughed, partly in relief, perhaps, that this
uncertain element which he was finding in Jack had not yet proved
explosive.

"That would make a capital excuse for a student flunking in
examinations!" he said.

"It might be a worthy one--not that I say it ought to pass him."

"Now, Jack," the doctor began afresh, the reassuring force of his
personality again in play.

He took a step and raised his hands as if he would put them on Jack's
shoulders. One could imagine him driving hypochondria out of many a
patient's mind by thus making his own vigorous optimism flow down from
his fingertips, while he looked into the patient's eye. But his hands
remained in the air, though Jack had been only smiling at him. This was
not the way to handle this patient, something told his trained, sensitive
instinct in time, and he let his hands fall in semblance of a gesture of
protest, gave a shrug and came directly to the point very genuinely.

"Well, Jack--your father!"

"Yes." And Jack's face was still and blank, while shadows played over
it in a war among themselves. "He did not even tell me you were
coming," he added.

"Perhaps he feared that it would give you time to develop a cough or you
would start overland to Chihuahua so I should miss you. Jack, he needs
you! All that fortune waits for you!"

"Now that I am strong, yes! He did not come out to see me even during
the first year when I had not the health to go to him, nor did he think
to come with you."

"He--he is a very busy man!" explained the doctor, in ready championship.
And yet he looked away from Jack, and when he looked back it was with an
appeal to conscience rather than to filial affection. "Is it right to
remain, however much you like this desert life? Have you any excuse?"

"Yes, an overwhelming one!" exclaimed Jack in a voice that was
high-pitched and determined, while his eyes burned and no trace of humor
remained on lips that were as firm as the outline of