he other lands
in the will in favor of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, and the latter had
gone ahead improving them and increasing their output in spite of the
repeated threats of the railroad to bring suit. And it was not until its
present attorney had come in and investigated the title that the railroad
had resorted to the law. I mention here, by the way, that my client was
the sole heir.

But as the time of the sessions drew near, the outlook for me was
anything but bright. It is true that my witnesses were quite willing to
depose that his actions were queer and out of the common, but these
witnesses were for the most part venerable farmers and backwoodsmen:
expert testimony was deplorably lacking. In this extremity it was Mr.
Farquhar Fenelon Cooke himself who came unwittingly to my rescue. He had
bought a horse,--he could never be in a place long without one,--which
was chiefly remarkable, he said, for picking up his hind feet as well as
his front ones. However he may have differed from the ordinary run of
horses, he was shortly attacked by one of the thousand ills to which
every horse is subject. I will not pretend to say what it was. I found
Mr. Cooke one morning at his usual place in the Lake House bar holding
forth with more than common vehemence and profanity on the subject of
veterinary surgeons. He declared there was not a veterinary surgeon in
the whole town fit to hold a certificate, and his listeners nodded an
extreme approval to this sentiment. A grizzled old fellow who kept a
stock farm back in the country chanced to be there, and managed to get a
word in on the subject during one of my client's rare pauses.

"Yes," he said, "that's so. There ain't one of 'em now fit to travel
with young Doctor Vane, who was here some fifteen years gone by. He
weren't no horse-doctor, but he could fix up a foundered horse in a night
as good as new. If your uncle was livin', he'd back me on that, Mr.
Cooke."

Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses
of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.

"Where is Doctor Vane now?" I asked finally.

"Over to Minneapolis, sir, with more rich patients nor he can take care
of. Wasn't my darter over there last month, and seen him? And demned if
he didn't pull up his carriage and talk to her. Here's luck to him."

I might have heard much more of the stockraiser had I stayed, but I fear
I left him somewhat abruptly in my haste to find Farrar. Only three da