A physician told Tom Blake that he not only needed a change of scene, but that to regain his health he required absolute freedom from business cares. "I would advise you," said the doctor, "to get on a horse and ride away, no matter whither. Go to the mountains—shun the merest suggestions of civilization; in short, sleep out like a bear."

Blake attempted to act upon this advice. He stuffed a few shirts into a pair of saddlebags, mounted a jolting horse, and rode up into the grandeur of rugged mountain gorges. But to him the scenery imparted no thrill of admiration. His heart beat low, and his pulse quivered with a weakening flutter. The fox that in sudden alarm sprang across the pathway, the raccoon that, with awkward scramble, climbed a leaning tree, called not for a momentary quickening of his blood. He was passing through one of the most distressing of human trials. He had no disease; every muscle was sound. What, then, was the trouble? You shall know.

He lay at night in a bank of leaves. Now everything startled him. He trembled violently when the sun went down. Once he sprang, with a cry of alarm, from his bed of leaves. Then he lay down again, ashamed. The horse had snorted.

Farther and farther he went into the wildness of the mountains. One evening he came upon a narrow road, and, following it for some distance, saw a house. It was an old inn, with a suggestion of the brigand about it. He tied his horse to a fence made of poles and went into the house. There he found a man with a parchment face and small, evil eyes, and a woman who, on the stage, could have appropriately taken the rÔle of hag.

"Why, come in, sir, come in," said the man, getting up and placing a chair for Blake. "Wife and I have been so lonesome for the last day or so that we have been wishing somebody would come. Haven't we, Moll?"

The woman removed a cob pipe from her mouth, drew the back of a skinny hand across her blue-looking lips, made a noise like the guttural croak of an old hen with the roup, and said, "Yes."

"You'll of course stay all night with us," the man remarked. "We can't possibly allow you to go on, especially as we are going to have falling weather. Oh, when it comes to hospitality, why, you'll find it right here. I'll go out and put up your horse."

Blake entered no objections. His deplorable condition would have forced him into a compliance with almost any sort of proposition. The man went out, put up the horse, and soon returned with a log of wood. "The more fire we have the more cheerful it will be," he explained. "Out prospecting?" he asked.

"No," Blake answered.

"Don't live nowhere near here, I reckon?"

"No."

"How long do you expect to remain in this part of the country?"

"I don't know."

The old woman mumbled and then, with a grating croak, said:

"He don't 'pear willin' ter tell much about hisse'f. Some folks is mighty curi's thater way."

"Never mind, Moll," the host quickly responded. "It ain't quite time for you to put in, except in the way of getting us a bite to eat."

She arose, without replying, and began preparations for supper.

"It is a dull time of the year with us," said the host. "It has been about two weeks since our last boarder left. But I reckon business will pearten up a little when the fishing season opens."

Blake paid no attention, except when some sharp and unexpected note in the old man's voice produced a tingling of the nerves.

Shortly after supper, Blake declared his readiness to go to bed. He was shown into a sort of shed room, separated by a thin partition from the room which he had just quitted. The old man placed a spluttering candle on the hearth, and, expressing the hope that his guest would pass a quiet and peaceful night, withdrew.

Blake lay unable to sleep. Once the spluttering candle caused him to spring up in bed. Suddenly his ears, extremely sensitive with his nervousness, caught the sounds of a whispered conversation.

"It won't do to shed blood," said the old man. "It won't do, for we made a mighty narrow escape the last time. It's impossible to get blood stains out of the house.

"I b'l'eve them saddlebags air full uv money," the hag replied.

"I don't doubt that, and we've got to have it."

"How air you goin' ter git it?"

"Poison him. I wasn't a sort of doctor all these years for nothing."

"You never was no doctor ter hurt."

"But I'll be a doctor to-night to hurt."

"How air you goin' ter pizen him? Thar ain't a speck uv pizen on the place."

"Where is that morphine?"

"Up thar in the bottle, but will that fix him?"

"Yes, and in such a way that nobody will suspect anything."

"How air you goin' ter do? Hold it under his nose?"

"Hold it under his foot!" the man contemptuously replied. "I am going to make him take it."

"How?"

"I'll fix it."

Then there occurred a whispering of which Blake caught the following:

"Think that's ernuff?" the woman asked.

"It's nearly half a teaspoonful. Enough to make five men sleep throughout eternity."

A moment later the host entered Blake's room. His manner was free from embarrassment. In one hand he held a glass containing water.

"Stranger, I don't want to disturb you, but it occurred to me just now that you looked as if you might be going to have a spell of sickness, so I thought I would bring you some medicine. I am willing to help a man, but I don't want him to be sick on my hands. I am a doctor, but I don't propose to keep a hospital."

"Suppose I refuse to take the medicine?"

"Then you'll put me to the trouble of pouring it down you, that's all. I am a mighty gentle sort of a fellow as long as everything goes on all right, but if a hitch occurs, why I am as rough as a swamp oak."

"Are you sure the medicine will not hurt me?"

"Hurt you! Why, it will do you good. Here, swallow it down."

Blake drank the contents of the glass. The host smiled, bowed, and withdrew. Then there followed another whispered conversation.

"Tuck it all right, did he?"

"Like a lamb. He'll be all right in a half-hour from now."

During fifteen or twenty minutes Blake lay quietly in bed. Then he got up, dressed himself noiselessly, arranged the bed covers to resemble the form of a man, took his saddlebags, stepped out at a back door, went to the stable, saddled his horse, mounted and rode up to a window and looked into the room which he had occupied. Cattle were tramping about the yard, and the noise made by the horse attracted no attention. He took a position so that he could, unobserved, see all that passed within the room. The "doctor" and the old woman soon entered. They made no attempt to speak in low tones.

"Whar is his saddlebags?" the woman asked.

"Under his head, I reckon. Snatch off the covers. He won't wake up."

The old woman pulled off the covers and uttered a cry of surprise. Blake tapped on the window glass.

"Say, Doc," he called, "bring me the rest of that morphine. You see, I have been a morphine eater for a number of years, but am trying to quit. Your dose came in pretty handy, for I was in a bad fix. I am all right now, and am much obliged to you. Good-night."

Less than a week from that time the "doctor" and his wife were in jail, charged with the murder of a traveler. They were hanged at Greenville last September.