"He's going to—going to—"
The boy was unable to complete the sentence. The doctor put his arm over his shoulder for a moment in a kindly, elder-brotherly touch.
"I'm afraid so, my boy. In fact, I know so. Keep a stiff upper lip, old man. He'll like that."
Adam Mackay stared at his eldest son hungrily from the pillows. Above his great black beard his face was gray. He was a great frame of a man, long, lean and sinewy. The likeness of father and son was marked. He held out his hand feebly and the boy took it and choked. Then Adam Mackay spoke in a little whisper so unlike his usual deep voice that the boy was startled, and because it was near the end with him his words carried the sharp twist and hiss of the Gaelic which was the tongue of his youth; for though Adam Mackay had never seen Scotland, he had been born in a settlement which, fifty years before, was more Gaelic than the Highlands themselves.
"It cannot be helped, son, and it is little I care for myself. When you come to face death, many years from now, please the God, you'll find it no' sic' a fearful thing. But it is you and the children that worries me now, Angus."
"Never mind us, father," the boy said. "I can look after Jean and Turkey."
The stricken giant smiled at him with a quiet pride of which the recollection years after warmed the boy's heart.
"I had hoped for twenty years of life yet, by which time you would have been settled, with children of your own. Eh, well, the young birds must fledge and fly alone, and your wings are well sprouted, Angus-lad. You have in you the makings of a man, though yet headstrong and dour by nature. And now listen, son, for my time is short: I look to you to take the place I can no longer fill. You are the Mackay, the head of the family. Remember that, and cease before your time to be a boy."
"I will, father," the boy promised.
"There is little or no money, worse luck," the man went on. "All I have had I have put into land and timber, and the fire burnt the timber: But in time the land will make you rich, though not yet awhile, maybe. But till it does, the ranch will give you a living. Sell nothing now—not an acre. Promise me, boy!"