storal visitation every day in the
week and been welcome. He had almost got ahead of the doctor in the
eldest orphan's regard; for while the doctor had plenty of books, whole
shelves of them, they were queer, stupid things, full of long, hard
words, and never a battle or a shipwreck from one cover to the other.

At first, the boy's greedy desire to devour a story at one sitting
filled him with impatience at his own slowness. He found, to his
chagrin, that he could not read the "Waverley Novels" with the
swiftness the course of events demanded. He tried having them read
aloud by his father, but though Jake was always willing, he stumbled
and spelled his way through the battles and adventures with a
laboriousness that nearly set his young listener mad.

But one winter night Tim discovered a royal road to learning. The
minister had called, and left "Quentin Durward." It was an evening the
boy had been in the habit of spending with John McIntyre, so he slipped
the volume inside his coat and sped away with it down to the Drowned
Lands.

And wonderful good fortune, John McIntyre proved a splendid reader.
Not only that, but after his first reluctance had been overcome, he
seemed to like the task.

That was the beginning of a new life for both of them. The boy came
almost every evening now, and as John McIntyre grew stronger he often
read on, as absorbed as his listener, until the hour was late. Then,
instead of going home, Tim would curl up snugly in bed behind his
friend, and sleep until he was awakened in time to start for school.

One evening, when the sick man had almost recovered his wonted
strength, Tim came hobbling down the road with a large volume bulging
out the front of his coat. John McIntyre sat before his fire, looking
through his little frosted panes at the beauty of the winter sunset,
and something of the sadness in his weary eyes vanished as the little
figure appeared against the filmy rose mists of Treasure Valley, and
came trotting down the glittering road. There seemed to be a
reflection of the sunset glow in the man's face as the boy bounded in.

"Hello!" he shouted, pitching his snowy mittens under the stove and his
cap upon the bed. "I've got a new story." He struggled to extract the
book from his coat. "Old Hughie Cameron gave it to me. Hech! hech!
hoots! toots! indeed and indeed!" he added, hobbling about the room,
and imitating the old man's caressing manner to perfection.

No one