as his eye followed her figure. "This air feels good, the sunshine is
fine, and that's a glorious blue sky. They say I 'm likely to become
an invalid if I try to live East any longer, and so that's cut out.
Well, a fellow could have plenty of out-door life here, and enjoy it,
if there are many days like this. It looks as if there 'd be money in
these orchards too. I reckon Dr. Millner must live in that cottage.
What an inviting looking place it is! I guess I 'd better go back to
the hotel and ask the clerk about the physicians here. I might need
one sometime."

Discreet inquiry of the hotel clerk as to the population of the town,
resident and floating, its general healthfulness, the number of
health-seekers, their success, and the number and relative skill of the
physicians it supported finally elicited for Ellison all the
information his present interest desired concerning Dr. Millner and his
family.

He also learned much about the history of Tobin. In its early days it
had been a mining camp and, as Tobin's Gulch, had been rich and famous.
Then, as the mines petered out, it had dwindled to poverty and two rows
of houses. But, after a long while, new people had begun to come.
Some of them had planted miles upon miles of orchards and vineyards,
others had come to be cured of bodily ills by its climate, at once
bracing and caressing, and still others, there for a brief summer
sojourn, had spread the knowledge that it was a pleasant and
picturesque retreat. So the town had dropped the plebeian "Gulch" from
its name and as "Tobin" counted with ever increasing pride the hundreds
of cars that carried its fruit from ocean to ocean and the growing
numbers of its health-seekers and summer visitors.