“The death rate is lower to-day, Bud.  Hang to that!”

“I do, Uncle Dave.  If it still goes down, will you take a vacation?”

“You are willing to go it alone, boy?”

“Yes!” grimly.  “I know I must.”

The two men relaxed and smoked peacefully, their feet stretched out to the fire.  Their long day warranted this pause.  They were strangely alike; strangely unlike.  Occasionally their eyes met and then their lips smiled.

They were friends.  The blood tie was incidental.

“You ought to be married, Clive.”

“Why, especially?”

“A man should; a doctor especially.  A wife and children are better to come home to than a pipe—­and a housekeeper.”

“You managed to buck along, Uncle Dave.”

“Yes—­buck along!  I couldn’t make up my mind to——­”

“I understand, Uncle Dave.  Miss Fletcher is great stuff—­she makes other women look cheap.”

“Bud, some women are like that.”

“I suppose so.”

Both men shook the ashes from their pipes—­there was a night’s work ahead.

Martin stared at the young face opposite.  It was a strong, kind face—­a face waiting for the high waves to strike it.  Martin seemed never to have known the boy, really, before.

“Bud, suppose you never find your woman?” he asked, huskily.

“All right, then I’ll peg along with that much lacking.  Oh!  I know what you are thinking of, Uncle Dave.  I’ve been through it—­and turned it down!  Ever since I can remember I’ve kept a grip on myself by remembering you!”

“Good God, boy!” Martin choked; “I’m a poor model.  At the best I’ve been—­neutral.”

“Like hell you have!” irreverently ejaculated Cameron, pleasantly.  “Why, Uncle Dave, you’ve got muscle all over you from fighting the demon in you, but you have no ugly scars.  We can look each other in the eyes as we couldn’t—­if there were scars.  It’s all right, Uncle Dave.  We’ll get Mother here before long and have a bully time.”

Martin could not speak for a moment; he was looking ahead to the time when he’d have only this boy and his mother!

“Well, what’s up, Uncle Dave?”

“Bud, have you suspected anything about Miss Fletcher?  Her health, I mean?”

“Yes.  I’ve studied about her, too.”

“And kept quiet, eh?”

“Sure!  But, Uncle Davie, if we—­” Martin blessed him for that “we”—­“if we could get her outside of herself, it would do a lot for her.  I’ve a hunch that you have let her get on the shelf.  I wouldn’t if I were you!  I know it may be necessary to keep her to rules, but she thinks too much about the rules; they cramp her.  When Nancy marries—­what then?”

“The Lord knows!”

“Where’s that other girl—­Joan?”

Martin’s face hardened.

“Living her life. Her life,” he said.

“Anything—­dirty about it?” Cameron asked.