“Kin I look at it?” queried Pete.

She gave the chart to him and he studied it frowningly.  “What’s this here that looks like a range of mountains ?” he asked.

“Your temperature.”  And she explained the meaning of the wavering line.

“Gee!  Back here I sure was climbin’ the high hills!  That’s a interestin’ tally-sheet.”

Pete saw a peculiar expression in her gray eyes.  It was as though she were searching for something beneath the surface of his superficial humor; for she knew that there was something that he wanted to say—­something entirely alien to these chance pleasantries.  She all but anticipated his question.

“Would you mind tellin’ me somethin’?” he queried abruptly.

“No.  If there is anything that I can tell you.”

“I was wonderin’ who was payin’ for this here private room—­and reg’lar nurse.  I been sizin’ up things—­and folks like me don’t get such fancy trimmin’s without payin’.”

“Why—­it was your—­your father.”

Pete sat up quickly.  “My father!  I ain’t got no father.  I—­I reckon somebody got things twisted.”

“Why, the papers”—­and Doris bit her lip—­“I mean Miss Howard, the nurse who was here that night . . .”

“When The Spider cashed in?”

Doris nodded.

“The Spider wasn’t my father.  But I guess mebby that nurse thought he was, and got things mixed.”

“The house-doctor would not have had him brought up here if he had thought he was any one else.”

“So The Spider said he was my father—­so he could git to see me!” Pete seemed to be talking to himself.  “Was he the friend you was tellin’ me called regular?”

“Yes.  I don’t know, but I think he paid for your room and the operation.”

“Don’t they make those operations on folks, anyhow, if they ain’t got money?”

“Yes, but in your case it was a very difficult and dangerous operation.  I saw that Dr. Andover hardly wanted to take the risk.”

“So The Spider pays for everything!” Pete shook his head.  “I don’t just sabe.”

“I saw him watching you once—­when you were asleep,” said Doris.  “He seemed terribly anxious.  I was afraid of him—­and I felt sorry for him—­”

Pete lay back and stared at the opposite wall.  “He sure was game!” he murmured.  “And he was my friend.”

Pete turned his head quickly as Doris stepped toward the door.  “Could you git me some of them papers—­about The Spider?”

“Yes,” she answered hesitatingly, as she left the room.

Pete closed his eyes.  He could see The Spider standing beside his bed supported by two internes, dying on his feet, fighting for breath as he told Pete to “see that party—­in the letter”—­and “that some one had trailed him too close.”  And “close the cases,” The Spider had said.  The game was ended.

When Doris came in again Pete was asleep.  She laid a folded newspaper by his pillow, gazed at him for a moment, and stepped softly from the room.