“But, oh, Hiram! if he should—­if he should be taken away, what would we do?”

She began to cry.  Her husband laid a trembling hand on her shoulder.

“But he won’t,” he declared stoutly.  “I tell you God wouldn’t do such a thing.  Good-by, old lady.  I’ll hurry fast as I can.”

As he took up his cap and turned to the door he heard the voice of the weary little first mate chokily calling his crew to quarters.  “All hands on deck!”

The telegraph office was in Beriah Higgins’s store.  Thither ran the Captain.  Pat Sharkey, Mr. Higgins’s Irish helper, who acted as telegraph operator during Gertie Higgins’s absence, gave Captain Hiram little satisfaction.

“How can I get Dr. Parker?” asked Pat.  “He’s off on a cruise and land knows where I can reach him to-night.  I’ll do what I can, Cap, but it’s ten chances out of nine against a wire gettin’ to him.”

Captain Hiram left the store, dodging questioners who were anxious to know what his trouble might be, and dazedly crossed Main Street, to the railway station.  He thought of asking advice of his friend, the depot master.

The evening train from Boston pulled out as he passed through the waiting room.  One or two passengers were standing on the platform.  One of these was a short, square-shouldered man with gray side whiskers and eyeglasses.  The initials on his suit case were J. S. M., Boston, and they stood for John Spencer Morgan.  If the bearer of the suit case had followed the fashion of the native princes of India and had emblazoned his titles upon his baggage, the commonplace name just quoted might have been followed by “M.D., LL.D., at Harvard and Oxford; vice president American Medical Society; corresponding secretary Associated Society of Surgeons; lecturer at Harvard Medical College; author of ’Diseases of the Throat and Lungs,’ etc., etc.”

But Dr. Morgan was not given to advertising either his titles or himself, and he was hurrying across the platform to Redny Blount’s depot wagon when Captain Hiram touched him on the arm.

“Why, hello, Captain Baker,” exclaimed the Doctor, “how do you do?”

“Dr. Morgan,” said the Captain, “I—­I hope you’ll excuse my presumin’ on you this way, but I want to ask a favor of you, a great favor.  I want to ask if you’ll come down to the house and see the boy; he’s on the sick list.”

“What, Dusenberry?”

“Yes, sir.  He’s pretty bad, I’m ’fraid, and the old lady’s considerable upsot about him.  If you just come down and kind of take an observation, so’s we could sort of get our bearin’s, as you might say, ’twould be a mighty help to all hands.”

“But where’s your town physician?  Hasn’t he been called?”

The Captain explained.  He had inquired, and he had telegraphed, but could get no word of Dr. Parker’s whereabouts.