apparently limitless capacity for housing man and beast. Coming in
contrast with the rock-strewn desolation of the plains, this was a great
establishment; the doctor had ridden out with a waif of the desert and
she had turned into a princess at a stroke. Then, for the first time
since they left Elkhead, he remembered with a start that he was to care
for a sick man in that house.

"You were to tell me," he said, "something about the sickness of your
father--the background behind his condition. But we've both forgotten
about it."

"I have been thinking how I could describe it, every moment of the
ride," she answered. Then, as the gloom fell more thickly around them
every moment, she swerved her horse over to the mare, as if it were
necessary that she read the face of the doctor while she spoke.

"Six months ago," she said, "my father was robust and active in spite of
his age. He was cheerful, busy, and optimistic. But he fell into a
decline. It has not been a sudden sapping of his strength. If it were
that I should not worry so much; I'd attribute it to disease. But every
day something of vitality goes from him. He is fading almost from hour
to hour, as slowly as the hour hand of a clock. You can't notice the
change, but every twelve hours the hand makes a complete revolution.
It's as if his blood were evaporating and nothing we can do will supply
him with fresh strength."

"Is this attended by irritability?"

"He is perfectly calm and seems to have no care for what becomes of
him."