something intensely irritating about their mere physical size; they
threw him continually on the defensive and he found himself making
apologies to himself and summing up personal merits. In this case there
was more direct reason for his anger. It was patent that the man did
not weight the strange doctor against any serious thoughts.

"And this," she was saying, "is Mr. Daniels. Buck, is there any change?"

"Nothin' much," answered Buck Daniels. "Come along towards evening and
he said he was feeling kind of cold. So I wrapped him up in a rug. Then
he sat some as usual, one hand inside of the other, looking steady at
nothing. But a while ago he began getting sort of nervous."

"What did he do?"

"Nothing. I just _felt_ he was getting excited. The way you know when
your hoss is going to shy."

"Do you want to go to your room first, doctor, or will you go in to see
him now?"

"Now," decided the doctor, and followed her down the hall and through a
door.

The room reminded the doctor more of a New England interior than of the
mountain-desert. There was a round rag rug on the floor with every
imaginable colour woven into its texture, but blended with a rude
design, reds towards the centre and blue-greys towards the edges. There
were chairs upholstered in green which looked mouse-coloured where the
high lights struck along the backs and the arms--shallow-seated chairs