Dr. Fred Grant, recalled in haste from his daily round of professional visits by a telephone message from his nephew, leaped out of his carriage over the yet moving wheel, and, stuffing an open letter into his pocket, rushed up the walk and into his office, which occupied a wing of his commodious house.

A sight met his eyes which was not uncommon, situated as he was in the midst of the coal fields of Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Stretched out on the leather couch lay a man from the mines, black and grimy, his right arm crushed. Two other miners, also blackened with coal-dust, sat on the edges of their chairs, their eyes following the movements of Ross Grant, the doctor’s nephew and self-constituted assistant.

Those movements had been rapid and effective. Again and again had this seventeen-year-old boy been brought face to face with such cases as this, and he handled it promptly and wordlessly. Words, indeed, would have been wasted, as none of his callers spoke English. He had quieted the sufferer with a hypodermic injection of morphine, stripped the injured arm, cleansed it, and treated it with a temporary dressing.

Then, with the bandages firmly in place, he had gone to the telephone and patiently called up house after house until he found his uncle.

When Dr. Grant entered the office, he found Ross calmly taking the temperature of the wounded man.

"He must have met with the accident at least an hour before they got him here," the boy explained, "for he was suffering awfully. I thought I ought to fix him up before trying to find you."

His uncle nodded with satisfaction, and bent over the man. "All right," he commended briefly, but his tone said more. Words were not always necessary to an understanding between uncle and nephew.

The younger man was an abridged edition of the older in form and feature. In movements the two were alike only so long as Ross was aiding the doctor on such an occasion as this. Then there were in both the same alertness and quiet intentness, the same compression of the lips and narrowing of the eyes. But when the strain of the hour was past and the miners gone, the boy’s manner changed. The alert quality which characterized the uncle at all times seemed to desert the nephew, and his movements became slow. From the born surgeon in embryo he became a rather awkward, self-conscious boy.

Throwing himself into a chair behind the table, he drew toward him Gray’s "Anatomy," and began reading at a line marked by a paper-cutter, his closely cropped head grasped in both hands.

The older man moved around the room restlessly, occasionally glancing with troubled eyes at the figure behind the table. Standing finally in front of the window, he drew the letter from his pocket, smoothed it out, and read it again.

In front of him, in the valley, lay Pittston and Wilkes-Barre, with Scranton in the distance, and beyond, the sun-burned hills, almost hidden now by the smoke from a hundred coal-breakers, and by the late August haze.

"Ross," began Dr. Grant abruptly, without turning, "I’m afraid you are going to meet disappointment–to a certain extent. I have a letter from your father."

The boy raised his head with a jerk. "Do you mean that he forbids––"

"No,"–the doctor turned slowly,–"not exactly. He expects to send for you in a few days, and will tell you himself."Ross’s chin came up. "And I shall not be twenty-one for nearly four years yet!" he exclaimed aggressively.

His uncle looked at him with more sternness than he felt. "Remember, Ross, that he is your father and that you owe him––"

Ross interrupted hotly, looking longingly at the letter. "I don’t owe him as much as I do you and Aunt Anne."

Dr. Grant made no reply, nor did he share the letter. Putting it into an inner pocket, he left the office, and presently Ross heard the sound of wheels on the drive. Dr. Grant was starting again on his interrupted round of calls.

The boy leaned back and drew a deep breath. His father was going to send for him, and would then tell him–what? That he could not enter a medical college? That he could not become a surgeon? That he must fit himself for a business career? His chin came up again. He looked around the office lingeringly. It had been the heart of his home for seven years. It represented to him all that he wished to become. His father was almost a stranger to him; his uncle had stood in the place of a father since he, a sickly boy of ten, had been sent from the city to gain health on the hills which girdle Wyoming Valley.

He had gained health. In so far he had fulfilled his father’s wishes. But, in addition, he had gained a knowledge and been settled in a desire extremely displeasing to Ross Grant, Senior, who expected to train his only son to continue his own business.

"Grant & Grant" was the father’s ambition; "Dr. Grant" the son’s.

Presently Dr. Grant’s wife appeared in the doorway of the office. She was a short, round woman, with a laughing face and a pretty, bustling air of authority. Stopping abruptly, she shook a chubby forefinger at Ross.

"All day to-day," she accused, "you have bent over that book."

Ross, his elbows planted on the table and his chin resting on his fists, shook his head. He did not look up.

"I’ve been studying Gray on Anatomy, Aunt Anne. Got to master him."

Aunt Anne bobbed energetically across the room, and slammed the volume shut. "There!" she cried triumphantly. "Get out and walk five miles, and strengthen your own anatomy!"

Under her light tones and in the affectionate touch of her hand as she ran her fingers through his hair, Ross detected an undercurrent of solicitude, which brought forth a counter-accusation. Rising hastily, he laid both hands on her shoulders, and looked down from an altitude of five feet ten.

"Aunt Anne, you know what father wrote to uncle, don’t you?"

Mrs. Grant’s eyes fell. "Better take a good run over the mountain, Ross," she parried.

Ross’s hands slipped from her shoulders. "I see there’s no use asking either of you what he wrote."

Mrs. Grant flecked some dust from the table. "Sometimes, Ross," was her only reply, "disappointment is the very best and most strengthening tonic we can take."

She turned away, adding without glancing back as she left the room: "I do wish, Ross, that you’d get out and exercise more. You would conquer Gray’s ’Anatomy’–and all other difficulties–more quickly if you would."

"I guess you’re right, Aunt Anne," assented Ross.

"Yes," scolded Aunt Anne to her sister in the living-room–but the scolding rested on a very apparent foundation of love–"Ross always agrees with me about taking vigorous exercise–and then never takes it. Now watch him walk, will you?" she fretted, looking out of the window.

Her sister, busily sewing, paused with suspended needle, and glanced out. Ross was going slowly down the drive, his head bent forward, his youthful shoulders carelessly sagging, his long arms aimlessly hanging, giving him a curiously helpless appearance at variance with his large frame.

"It’s Ross’s own fault," declared Aunt Anne. "He doesn’t like to exert himself physically. Not that he’s lazy," defensively, "for he isn’t. He would work all night over a patient, and never think of himself; but to get out and exercise for the sake of exercising, and straightening himself up, and holding himself, somehow–well, I’ve talked myself hoarse about it, and then found that he had been reading some medical book or other all the time I was talking!"

Here Aunt Anne laughed silently, and ran her shears through a length of gingham, adding, as if the addition were a logical sequence to her monologue:

"It’s a mystery to me how his father can feel so disappointed in him."

"Disappointed in Ross?" exclaimed the sister in a tone of wonder.

Mrs. Grant nodded. "His father sends for him once a year, sees him for a day or two when Ross is at the greatest disadvantage in unaccustomed surroundings–you know the stepmother is a woman of fashion; and the result is that he is so awkward and slow and tongue-tied that his father–well," Mrs. Grant bit off her thread energetically, "of course, we feel tender on the subject because we have had Ross now for seven years, and we think a better boy never lived. But now the time has come," her voice trembled, "when we must give him up."

"Will his father forbid his going to medical college?" asked the sister.

Mrs. Grant hesitated. "No, I don’t think he will forbid it; but he will prevent it–if he is able," she added significantly.

Two days later the summons from Ross Grant, Senior, arrived in the shape of a telegram brief and to the point. "Take night-train," it read, "September first. Reach office at nine."

"Ross," worried Aunt Anne as she straightened his tie and hovered around him anxiously the afternoon of September first, "you’d better get a new hat in Scranton. This one is–well, I think you better appear before Mrs. Grant in a new one."

"All right, aunt."

Dr. Grant extended his hand, and gripped Ross’s. "Remember, my boy, that the telegram appointed nine a. m. as the time for your appearing."

Ross laughed. "Don’t you worry, uncle," he returned confidently. "I shall be at the office before father gets there."

But, despite his confidence, it was nearly ten the morning following before he stepped out of the elevator of a Broadway office building and presented himself hesitatingly before the clerk in his father’s outer office.

His hesitation was due to his appearance. His hat, new the afternoon before, was soiled and pierced by the calk of a horse’s shoe. His shirtfront was also soiled and then smeared over by a wet cloth in a vain effort to remove the dirt. His right coat-sleeve was wrinkled, and bore marks of a recent wetting. About his clothes lingered a subtle "horsy" odor, which caused the clerk to sniff involuntarily as he curiously looked over the heir to the house of Grant before disappearing into the inner office.

When he returned he bore the crisp message that Ross was to wait until his father had time to see him.

Ross waited. He retreated to a window through which the sunshine streamed, and there sat, industriously drying his wet sleeve. He pulled it, and smoothed it, and stretched it, only to see it shrivel and shrink while he waited. The clerk occasionally glanced with no abating of curiosity from the boy to the clock. Two hours passed. Others waiting in that outer office grew restless. They read. They took quick turns about the room. They went out into the corridor, and returned. At last, one by one, they were ushered into the inner office, while Ross still waited.

It was past twelve before his father sent for him, and the first glance the boy encountered was one of displeasure.

"Did you come in on the night-train?" was the elder Grant’s greeting.

"Yes, sir."

The father frowned, and looked up at a clock which ticked above their heads.

"I telegraphed you that I could see you at nine."

Ross sank into a great padded, leather-upholstered chair. All about him were evidences of luxury, but he was conscious only of his father’s displeasure and of his own disreputable appearance. He studied his hands awkwardly, and stumbled in his reply.

"I should have been here by nine, sir, but for an accident which occurred on the ferry––"

"Accident?" His father’s tone softened.

Ross looked at his coat-sleeve. "There was a fine horse, a big bay that stood behind a truckster’s cart. He took an apple. It lodged in his throat, and he nearly choked to death." The boy hesitated and glanced up. "I got it out," he explained simply, adding apologetically, "I got awfully mussed up doing it, though."

"You!" Grant burst out, paying no attention to the apology. "You got it out!" He leaned forward, genuinely interested. "How did you do it?"

Ross warmed under the interest in the tone. "I was standing in the bow of the boat, just over the rail from the horse, and I saw what the trouble was. There was no one else who seemed to know what to do." He spoke modestly. "The horse would have died before we reached the landing; and so," simply, "I ran my arm down his throat, and got the apple."

"You did!" ejaculated Grant. He leaned further forward. "And what prevented the horse from chewing up your arm while you were after the apple?"

"A bootblack’s brush," Ross explained. "A boy was rubbing up a man’s shoes near me; and I grabbed his brushes, and got busy. One of the deck hands helped me prop the horse’s mouth open. I threw off my coat"–here Ross surveyed himself ruefully, and left the subject of the horse; "and I got pretty dirty all over. Couldn’t help it. There wasn’t any time to think of keeping clean. But after we got over on the New York side the owner of the horse took me to a stable, and helped me to clean up; but–I don’t think it’s much of a success."

Mr. Grant leaned back in his swivel chair, rested his elbows on the arms, and fitted his finger-tips together. His imagination, country-trained in his youth, was supplying some of the details which his son had omitted. He nodded his iron-gray head, and narrowed his eyes, a trick common to all the Grants when intent on any subject.

"Quick work," he remarked after a pause. His eyes were taking the measure of his son. "It had to be quick work," he added as if to convince himself that Ross could act swiftly.

"Where did you get breakfast?" was his next question.

"I haven’t had any," Ross replied. "I tried to get here by nine o’clock."

A low whistle escaped the father. He arose, and reached for his hat, which lay on the top of a safe behind him. "We’ll go out to lunch now."

Ross glanced doubtfully from his father’s well-groomed person to his own dirty coat.

"Perhaps, father, you’d like me to go out alone so long as––"

"Nonsense!" interrupted Grant brusquely.

As they left the room, he took his boy’s arm. There was little resemblance between the two. Ross had his uncle’s head with its high brow and well-shaped chin, lean cheeks, and prominent ears. He was taller than his father, but wholly lacked his father’s energetic manner and erect carriage."You graduated in June from Wyoming Seminary," the father stated as they entered a large Broadway restaurant and sat down near the door.

"Yes, sir."

"No honors?"

The boy’s eyes fell. "No, sir. I stood tenth in a class of thirty-four."

Evasion of the truth was not one of Ross’s strong points.

"And," stated his father, "it took you five years to do a four years’ course."

Ross looked his father squarely in the eyes, and lifted his chin a little. The father noticed for the first time that the boy’s chin could indicate aggression.

"I flunked on mathematics. But I made them up the next summer, and went on."

Again Grant looked at his son attentively, the son who retrieved his failure and "went on."

"You’re seventeen," he said abruptly. "What’s next?" The question, as both knew, was superfluous.

"Medical college," Ross answered as abruptly as the question had been put. "I am preparing for the entrance examinations in the University of Pennsylvania. I want to go down and take them in January, and at the same time pass upon a couple of subjects in the freshman year."There was a gleam of curiosity in Grant’s deep-set eyes as he put the next questions.

"Haven’t I told you repeatedly that I shall never advance one penny on a medical education for you?"

"Yes, sir." Ross’s eyes met his father’s steadily but respectfully. "And I shall not ask you to advance a cent."

"But haven’t I forbidden your uncle, also, to help you out?"

"Yes, sir, and Uncle Fred has no intention of helping me. He’ll keep the letter and the spirit of the law you have laid down."

"Well, then––"

Ross smiled quietly. "But you have never forbidden my getting a medical education through my own efforts; and that, father, is what I intend to do."

Ross Grant, Senior, found himself looking into eyes which he recognized as strangely like his own and shining with the same determination which in himself had established a thriving business and built up a moderate fortune. Never had he been so interested in his son. Never had he so coveted him for a business career. But, as he ate a moment in silence, young Ross’s determined voice seemed to be repeating in old Ross’s ears, "That, father, is what I intend to do."

During the remainder of the meal the elder Grant listened attentively to the younger’s plans. To Ross this was a new experience. After the first irritation over his tardiness, his father had not once oppressed him with that sense of disapproval and disappointment which usually sent him back to his uncle with a buoyant relief at his escape from New York.

Still, he was not deceived. He knew that his father’s summons had to do with the thwarting of his surgical career; and he was prepared to argue, persuade, do anything short of actual defiance, to gain permission to work for the object toward which all his inclinations pulled.

As they made their way up Broadway through the noon-hour crowd, a feminine voice behind them suddenly piped out excitedly:

"There he is, Kate, right ahead of you–that tall, round-shouldered young man. He’s the one I told you about on the ferry this morning. I tell you what, he made all the men around step lively for a few minutes."

Ross suddenly quickened his pace. His face flushed uncomfortably, but the voice of "Kate’s" companion was still at his heels.

"Why, he grabbed them brushes and was over the rail as quick as a cat, and had that horse’s mouth open before its owner even knew that it was chokin’––"Ross, Senior, strode along behind Ross, Junior, now in a vain attempt to keep up. He chuckled in a sly enjoyment of the boy’s embarrassment.

"He certainly can move, I see," he muttered, "when he has something to move toward–or away from!"

But the mutter was lost on Ross seeking an escape from that voice of praise by dodging in and out among the crowd until his father lost sight of him, and found him again only at the entrance to the office building.

When the two were again seated in the private office, the father for the first time broached the matter which he had called the son from Pennsylvania to hear; and, had he studied the boy for months, he could not have overcome his opposition more tactfully and completely.

"Ross," he began quietly, "I am not going to forbid your going to a medical college this year or any other year. To be honest with you, I admire your grit. I believe it will bring you success. And so, as I say, I am not going to forbid your entering the University of Pennsylvania. But–I am going to ask a favor of you."

Ross’s eyes sparkled. His father swung around, and, picking up a pencil, marked aimlessly on a pad lying on the big mahogany desk.

"Well, father.""I am going to ask you to help me pay a debt which I owe–and the payment will certainly spoil this year so far as college is concerned."

Grant paused. He did not look up, but he heard Ross draw a deep breath. Then there was silence.

"Keep in mind," Grant began again, "that I am not requiring this of you–I am asking it."

"Yes–sir."

The tone gave the father the uncomfortable impression that he was assisting at a surgical operation on his son, but he bent his head a little lower over the pad, and traced figures more carefully as he began abruptly on a seemingly new subject.

"Have I ever told you about my Western partner, Jake Weimer?"

"No, sir."

"Well, I started business in the West without a cent, and it was Weimer who gave me my start. He was running a store in Butte, and took me with him. I have managed to get beyond a start, but Weimer never has. After I came East he lost his share of our earnings, and turned prospector. Ever since he has spent his life trying to squeeze gold out of the mountains. Again and again he has staked out claims, and I’ve grub-staked him to the finish. For twenty-five years this has gone on. So far, none of the properties have amounted to much; still, we hold them; there’s always a chance of a rise in value."

Grant drew straight, heavy lines on the pad as he told the story of his grub-staked partner. He fell easily into the vernacular of the gold-fields.

"Four years ago Weimer went prospecting among the Shoshones in Wyoming over near Yellowstone Park. There he began development work on some deserted claims, a few miles from Miners’ Camp."

Here Grant pulled a letter from his pocket, and consulted it.

"The claims, it seems," he continued, "had been originally worked by two men named Allen and Waymart McKenzie. They did the required work for three years, and then threw up their job and left Wyoming. Now they’re back again, wishing, evidently, that they had never left."

Ross nodded. His eyes had not left his father’s face.

"Weimer has felt from the first that he would make good on these claims. He has sent me quartz from time to time, and I’ve had it assayed. It carries moderately high values in gold, silver, and lead; but, as the camp is eighty miles from a railroad, up among almost impassable mountains, where it’s impossible to get the quartz to a smelter, I confess I have paid but little attention to Weimer’s work. It has seemed a waste of energy, despite his enthusiasm."

Grant suddenly threw himself back in his chair. His manner took on a keener edge, and his tone became brisker.

"But this year things bid fair to change there because the Burlington Railroad is surveying a line from Cody, and a boom is in prospect for next summer. Our claims have suddenly acquired a new importance; they promise to become valuable."

"Then," commented Ross in a low, constrained tone, "Weimer will get beyond a ’start’ at last."

Grant regarded his son keenly. He did not answer the comment directly.

"According to the law of Wyoming," he continued, "one hundred dollars’ worth of work a year for five years must be done on a claim, or five hundred dollars’ worth all together within five years, before the tract can be patented, by which I mean before the owners can receive a clear title to it. Now, Weimer has done four years’ work all right; but this year, the fifth and last in which he can hold the claims without fulfilling the conditions of work to the full, he is failing because of snow-blindness. It seems he had an attack last spring, and was obliged to stay in his cabin for weeks at a time instead of working."

Ross cleared his throat. "And if he fails––""We lose the claims, and the McKenzies get them back." Grant again consulted the letter. "Weimer got a man named Steele to write this–an Amos Steele in Miners’ Camp. He writes that the McKenzies are taking advantage of some technicalities in the law. They have already filed a claim on the tract based on their three years’ former occupancy. This will clear the way for them to take possession in case Weimer fails with the work. Steele goes on to say that, if the claims are saved, some one must come out and look after them–preferably some one with a personal interest in the property."

Mr. Grant laid the letter down, adding slowly, "If you go, I shall give you a substantial personal interest."

There ensued a pause. Ross sat motionless. His gaze had left his father’s face, and was fixed on the rug.

"Now, knowing," Grant continued, "that Weimer has set his heart on these claims, I can’t desert him. That work must be done and the claims patented."

There was another pause. Grant looked at his son expectantly, but still Ross neither moved nor spoke.

"Weimer is a good sort," Grant went on tentatively. "You’d like Weimer. He’s a big man and jolly in every pound of his avoirdupois. Great story-teller–stories worth listening to, what’s more. You wouldn’t be dull with him."

Grant leaned forward suddenly, and asked directly the question to which his son felt there could be but one reply in view of his father’s appeal.

"My boy, will you go?"