“Can’t we talk those over on the way to the ranch?  Even if we start now it will be dark before we arrive.”

“But,” protested the doctor, “I have not yet decided—­this precipitancy—­”

“Oh,” she said, and flushed.  He perceived that she was on the verge of turning away, but something withheld her.  “There is no other physician within reach; my father is very ill.  I only ask that you come as a diagnostician, doctor!”

“But a ride to your ranch,” he said miserably.  “I presume you refer to riding a horse?”

“Naturally.”

“I am unfamiliar with that means of locomotion,” said the doctor with serious eyes, “and in fact have not carried my acquaintance with the equine species beyond a purely experimental stage.  Anatomically I have a superficial knowledge, but on the one occasion on which I sat in a saddle I observed that the docility of the horse is probably a poetic fallacy.”

He rubbed his left shoulder thoughtfully and saw a slight tremor at the corners of the girl’s mouth.  It caused his vision to clear and concentrate; he found that the lips were, in fact, in the very act of smiling.  The face of the doctor brightened.

“You shall ride my own horse,” said the girl.  “She is perfectly gentle and has a very easy gait.  I’m sure you’ll have not the slightest trouble with her.”

“And you?”

“I’ll find something about town; it doesn’t matter what.”

“This,” said the doctor, “is most remarkable.  You choose your mounts at random?”

“But you will go?” she insisted.

“Ah, yes, the trip to the ranch!” groaned the doctor.  “Let me see:  the physical obstacles to such a trip while many are not altogether insuperable, I may say; in the meantime the moral urge which compels me towards the ranch seems to be of the first order.”  He sighed.  “Is it not strange, Miss Cumberland, that man, though distinguished from the lower orders by mind, so often is controlled in his actions by ethical impulses which override the considerations of reason?  An observation which leads us towards the conclusion that the passion for goodness is a principle hardly secondary to the passion for truth.  Understand that I build the hypothesis only tentatively, with many reservations, among which—­”

He broke off short.  The smile was growing upon her lips.

“I will put together a few of my things,” said the doctor, “and come down to you at once.”

“Good!” said the girl, “I’ll be waiting for you with two horses before you are ready.”

He turned away, but had taken hardly a step before he turned, saying:  “But why are you so sure that you will be ready before I—­” but she was already down the steps from the veranda and stepping briskly down the street.