"Yes, a Daniel! Only I wouldn't have been quite so sure if you hadn't dropped this out of your pocket." With a gleeful laugh she held up a clinical thermometer.

The doctor laughed also. "Men have been hanged on less evidence than that," he admitted. "All the same I don't know where it came from. Some one must have judged me capable of wanting to take my own temperature.

Anything else?"

"Only general deductions. You are a doctor, you are going to Coombe--deduction, you are the doctor who is going to buy out Dr.

Simmonds's practice."

Callandar scrambled up from his pillow with a look of delighted surprise on his face.

"Why--so I am!" he exclaimed.

"You say that as if you had just found it out."

"Well, er--you see I had forgotten it--temporarily. My head, you know."

The suspicion in the girl's eyes melted into sympathy. "I suppose you know," she said with quite a motherly air, "that old Doc. Simmonds hasn't really any practice to sell?"

"No? That's bad. Hasn't he even a little one? You see" (the sympathy had been so pleasant that he felt he could do with a little more of it), "I could hardly manage a big one just now. As you may have noticed, my health is rather rocky. Got to lay up and all that--so it's just as well that old Simpkins' practice is on the ragged edge."

"The name is Simmonds, not Simpkins," coldly.

"Well, I didn't buy the name with the practice. My own name is Callandar. Much nicer, don't you think?"

"I don't know. A well-known name is rather a handicap."

This time the doctor was genuinely surprised.

"A handicap? What do you mean?"

"People will be sure to compare you with your famous namesake, Dr.

Callandar, of Montreal. Everyone you meet," with a mischievous smile, "will say, 'Callandar--ah! no relation to Dr. Henry Callandar of Montreal, I suppose?' And then they will look sympathetic and you will want to slap them."

"Dear me! I never thought of that! I had no idea that the Montreal man would be known up here. In the cities, perhaps, but not here."

The girl raised her straight black brows in a way which expressed displeasure at his slighting tone.

"You are mistaken," she said briefly. "I must go now. It is time to ring the bell. The children are running wild."

For the first time the doctor began to take an intelligent interest in his surroundings, and saw that the tree, the white stoop and the small white building were situated in a little, quiet oasis separated by a low fence from the desert of a large yard containing the red pump. On the other side of the fence was pandemonium!

"Why, it's a school!" he exclaimed.

The school-mistress arose, daintily flicking the crumbs from her white pique skirt.

"District No. 15. The largest attendance of any in the county. I really must ring the bell." She flicked another invisible crumb. "I hope," she added slowly, "that I haven't discouraged you."

"Oh, no! not at all. Quite the contrary. It seems unfortunate about the name, but perhaps I can live it down. It isn't as if I were just out of college, you know.--In fact," as if the thought had just come to him, "do I not seem to you to be a little old for--to be making a fresh start?"

The girl's eyes looked at him very kindly. It was quite evident that she thought she understood the situation perfectly. "I shouldn't worry about that, if I were you," she said. "Young doctors are often no use at all.

A great many people _prefer_ doctors to be older! I know, you see, for my father was a doctor. He was Dr. Coombe; for many years he was the only doctor here, the only doctor that counted," with a pretty air of pride. "The town was named after his father-I am Esther Coombe."

The doctor acknowledged the introduction with a bow and a quick smile of grat.i.tude.

"You are really very kind, Miss Coombe," he said. "If--if I should take Dr. Spifkin's practice, I hope I may see you sometimes. It is not far from here, is it, to the town--pump?"

Esther laughed. "No, but I do not live out here. I only teach here. We live in town, or almost in. You will pa.s.s the house on the way to the hotel. But before you go--" with a gleeful smile she handed him his lost pocketbook--"this fell out of your coat when I pull--helped you under the tree. I should have given it to you before, but I wanted you to understand just how far the blessing of hunger depends upon one's power to gratify it."

They laughed together with a splendid sense of comradeship; then with a startled "I really must ring the bell!" she turned and ran up the steps.

Smilingly he watched her disappear, waiting musingly until a sudden furious ringing told him that school was called.

CHAPTER III

Two sandwiches, an apple, and a gla.s.s of water may save a man from starvation, but they do not go far towards satisfying the reviving appet.i.te of a convalescent. Walking with brisk step down the road, Callandar began to imagine the kind of meal he would order--a clear soup, broiled steak, crisp potatoes--a few little simple things like that! He fingered his pocketbook lovingly, glad that, for the first time in some months, he actually wanted something that money could buy.

Now that noon was past, the intense heat of the morning was tempered by a breeze. It was still hot and his footsteps raised little cyclones of dust which flew along the road before him, but the oppression in the air was gone, and walking had ceased to be a weariness. The mile which separated him from Coombe appeared no longer endless, yet so insistent were the demands of his inner man that when a town-going farmer hailed him with the usual offer of a "lift," he accepted the invitation with alacrity.

"Better," he murmured to himself, "the delights of rustic conversation with a good meal at the end thereof than lordly solitude and emptiness withal."

But contrary to expectation the rustic declined to converse. He was a melancholy-looking man with a long jaw and eyes so deep-set that the observer took them on faith, and a nose which alone would have been sufficient to identify him. Beyond the first request to "step up," he vouchsafed no word and, save for an inarticulate gurgle to his horse, seemed lost in an ageless calm. His gaze was fixed upon some indefinite portion of the horse's back and he drove leaning forward in an att.i.tude of complete bodily and mental relaxation. If his guest wished conversation it was apparent that he must set it going himself.

"Very warm day!" said Callandar tentatively.

"So-so." The farmer slapped the reins over the horse's flank, jerked them abruptly and murmured a hoa.r.s.e "Giddap!" It was his method of encouraging the onward motion of the animal.

"Is it always as warm as this hereabouts?"

"No. Sometimes we get it a little cooler 'bout Christmas."

The doctor flushed with annoyance and then laughed.

"You see," he explained, "I'm new to this part of the country. But I always thought you had it cooler up here."

The manner of the rustic grew more genial.

"Mostly we do," he admitted; "but this here is a hot spell." Another long pause and then he volunteered suddenly: "You can mostly tell by Alviry. When she gets a sunstroke it's purty hot. I'm going for the doctor now."

"Going for the doctor?" Callandar's gaze swept the peaceful figure with incredulous amus.e.m.e.nt. "Great Scott, man! Why don't you hurry? Can't the horse go any faster?"

"Maybe," resignedly, "but he won't."

"Make him, then! A sunstroke may be a very serious business. Your wife may be dead before you get back."

The deep-set eyes turned to him slowly. There seemed something like a distant sparkle in their depths.