Dr. Inman Shonto was one of those men who command attention wherever they go. He was tall and lean and broad-shouldered, and his outing clothes had been fitted to his remarkable body with precision. He was an ugly man as masculine comeliness goes, but, for all that, women found him intensely interesting. His nose was monstrous, and lightly pitted from bridge to tip. His mouth was big, and the lips were thick, puckered, and firm. His hair was thin and neutral in colour—somewhere between a dark brown and a light. His ears were rather large and a trifle outstanding. His eyes were grey and very intense in their manner of observing others.
It was the strong face of a strong man. One knew instinctively that great will power was this man’s heritage. One believed, after a glance into that homely face, that this man took what he wanted from life, and that his wants were by no means puny. Even in hunting clothes Dr. Inman Shonto was fastidious. And his walk was fastidious, even here in the wilderness. The realization that he and his young companion were lost in the wilds did not serve to ruffle the doctor’s calm exterior. He was nothing if not self-controlled on all occasions.
Despite his homeliness, his smile was engaging as he turned and looked back at Andy after topping a little bald rise toward which the two had been travelling, hoping on its summit to gain a better view of the surrounding country.
“Andy,” he said, “I smell smoke. Sound encouraging?”
The young man reached his side, and the two stood looking in every direction and sniffing speculatively.
“I get it, too, Doctor,” Andy told the other finally. “It seems to be over in that direction.”
Andy pointed west, and the doctor nodded silently.
“There’s a ranch or a camp pretty close,” he decided. “Now let’s locate that smoke definitely and make a bee-line for it. I don’t just fancy a night in this cold, unfriendly forest.”
“Do you know, Dr. Shonto,” said Andy, “that I don’t exactly think of the forest as unfriendly. Time and again, when you and I have been together in the outlands, you’ve thought nature unkind—bleak—unfriendly. Nature never strikes me that way.”
“That’s your inheritance from your Alps-climbing Swiss ancestors, I imagine,” replied the doctor. “But, if you’ll pardon me, Andrew, I’m more interested right now in locating a welcoming curl of blue smoke over the treetops than I am in a discussion of the attitude of Mother Nature toward two of her misplaced atoms. Look over there to the west. (I suppose that’s west.) Don’t you imagine you see a thin stream of smoke going up over there—just above that massive bull pine on the brow of that hill? Confound this infernal fog!”