des, there was more than a
chance that Dr. Blain might be incapable, and in that case it meant a
drive of thirty miles farther.

"It's good of you, Morrison," he said, "but you are more used to your
wife's'bidding than I am, and you can be of good service there, if
you will." And without waiting to argue he sprang into his sleigh
again and was whipping his team into the darkness.

Dr. Blain, when at home, was to be found at the stopping-place.
Harris tied his team at the door and went in, shaking the snow and
frost from his great-coat. The air inside was close and stifling with
tobacco, not unmixed with stronger fumes. A much-smoked oil lamp,
hung by a wall-bracket, shed a certain sickly light through the thick
air, and was supplemented in its illumination by rays from the door
of a capacious wood stove which stood in the centre of the room, and
about which half a dozen men were sitting.

"Night, Harris," said the landlord, who had a speaking acquaintance
with every settler within twenty miles. "Ye're drivin' late. Ye'll
have a bite supper, an' stable the team?"

"No, Hank, not to-night, thanking you the same. But I'm after Dr.
Blain, and I'm in a hurry. Is he here, and--is he fit?" There was an
anxiety in the last words that did not escape the host.

"Nothin' ser'ous, I hope? Frost, or somethin'?" Then, without waiting
for reply, he continued: "Yes, doctor's here. Upstairs, bed to the
right as ye go up. Just got in a little back. As for fit--dig 'im out
an' judge for yourself."

Harris lost no time in scaling the ladder which led to the upper
half-storey of the building. It was a garret--nothing better--where
the cold stars looked through knot-holes in the poplar shingles, and
the ends of the shingle-nails were tipped with frost. Another
wall-lamp burned uncertainly here, flickering in the wind that
whistled through the cracks in the gables, and by its light Harris
found "the bed to the right." The form of a man lay diagonally across
it, face downward, with arms extended above the head, and so still
that Harris paused for a moment in a strange alarm. Then he slipped
his hand on the doctor's neck and found it warm.

"Come, Doctor," he said, "I want you with me." But the sleeping man
answered with not so much as a groan.

"Come, Dr. Blain," Harris repeated, shaking him soundly. "I want you
to go home with me." He might have been speaking to the dead.

In sudden exasperation he seized the doctor by the shoulder