I cannot hope to ever repay you, I can at least keep the score from
running on. Pardon my speaking so bluntly, but my excuse for speaking at
all was to say 'Good-by' and 'God bless you.' Dr. Duchesne has promised
to give me a lift on my way in his buggy when he goes."

There was a slight touch of consciousness in his voice in spite of its
sadness, which struck the young girl as a weak and even ungentlemanly
note in his otherwise self-abnegating and undemonstrative attitude. If
he was a common tramp, he wouldn't talk in that way, and if he wasn't,
why did he lie? Her practical good sense here asserted itself.

"But you are far from strong yet; in fact, the doctor says you might
have a relapse at any moment, and you have--that is, you SEEM to have no
money," she said gravely.

"That's true," he said, quickly. "I remember I was quite played out when
I entered the settlement, and I think I had parted from even some little
trifles I carried with me. I am afraid I was a poor find to those who
picked me up, and you ought to have taken warning. But the doctor has
offered to lend me enough to take me to San Francisco, if only to give a
fair trial to the machine he has set once more a-going."

"Then you have friends in San Francisco?" said the young girl quickly.
"Those who know you? Why not write to them first, and tell them you are
here?"

"I don't think your postmaster here would be preoccupied with letters
for John Baxter, if I did," he said, quietly. "But here is the doctor
waiting. Good-by."