race with pride. With his father's powerful frame and close-knit muscles,
and the healthy life of the woods and hills leaping in his veins, his
splendid body and physical strength were refined and dominated by the
mind and spirit of his mother. His shaggy, red-brown hair was like his
father's but his eyes were his mother's eyes, with that same trick of
expression, that wide questioning gaze, that seemed to demand every vital
truth in whatever came under his consideration. He had, too, his mother's
quick way of grasping your thoughts almost before you yourself were fully
conscious of them, with that same saving sense of humor that made Sammy
Lane the life and sunshine of the countryside.

"Big Dan," the people of the hills had come to call him and "Big Dan"
they called him in the school. For, in the young life of the schools, as
in the country, there is a spirit that names men with names that fit.

Secretly the Doctor had hoped that Dan would choose the profession so
dear to him. What an ideal physician he would make, with that clean,
powerful, well balanced nature; and above all with that love for his
race, and his passion to serve mankind that was the dominant note in his
character. The boy would be the kind of a physician that the old Doctor
had hoped to be. So he planned and dreamed for Dan as he had planned and
dreamed for himself, thinking to see the dreams that he had failed to
live, realized in the boy.

It was a severe shock to the Doctor when that letter came telling him of
Dan's choice of a profession. For the first time the boy had disappointed
him, disappointed him bitterly.

Seizing his fishing tackle the old man fled to the nearest stream. And
there gazing into the deep, still waters, where he had cast his hook, he