“But suppose the choice lies between a grave in the East, and a wandering life of privation in the West, what do you say, then?”
“Who wanted to kill you at the East?” asked Peter Brush, bluntly.
“Consumption, my friend. I inherit a tendency to that fatal disease. My mother died of it. Her mother died of it, and several other relations have in turn fallen victims to the scourge of the Atlantic Coast. Well, when I found the seeds ripening in my own system, and nature’s warning becoming only too plain, I took the hint. I knew there was only one course to take. I must abandon the East, and my flourishing practice, must give up furnace-heated houses, and live out of doors far away from the fatal east winds. It was a great sacrifice, for I was a successful physician, and I liked the life of towns, and the culture and advantages of Eastern civilization, but life was precious, and I did not hesitate.”
“How long ago was that, doctor?” asked Mr. Brush.
“Six years ago. I went across the plains to California. There I made some money and returned, but I could not stay long, for my old symptoms began to come back. I resumed my wanderings, and have spent more or less of the time since on the plains.”
“And how’s your health?”
“There’s a good deal of life in me yet, though I don’t look rugged.”
Indeed the doctor, with his slim, hollow cheeks, looked far from robust, but he was embrowned by exposure to the elements, and was tough and wiry, and as Mr. Brush found out, he had a good deal of endurance.
“You don’t look like a picter of health,” said Mr. Brush.
“No; but that’s partly because I am constitutionally thin. Our family doesn’t gain flesh easily. I am well, and my appetite is always good, sometimes inconveniently good, for I am often so situated that I can’t gratify it.”