“You’ve hit it right at the first guess, though I hardly suppose I resemble a cowboy.”
“No,” said Vance; “still, you could easily be taken for a prosperous ranch owner, or something of that sort.”
“That’s right enough, too. I don’t look much as though I was afflicted with consumption, do I?” asked Bradhurst, with a smile.
“Why, no,” replied the boy in a tone of surprise.
“Well, eight years ago, a few years after I graduated from Yale College and was beginning the life of a business man in New York, my friends came to the conclusion that I was marked for an early grave. I had the disease, all right, so the doctors I consulted said, and was treated for it; but I went from bad to worse, until it seemed only a question of time when I was expected to step out. As a last resort I was advised to give up everything and go to Colorado. Well, I went.”
“And coming West cured you?”
“I don’t fancy so; it was the new life I lived. I kept away from large towns and went into the wilderness. I lived out in the open air. I bought a horse and rode about a great deal. After awhile I found my strength returning and my chest expanding, and in two years I could afford to laugh at doctors.”
“And you never had a return of the old symptoms?”
“Never. I think it is perfectly safe for me to return to civilization again.”
“It must give you a great deal of satisfaction to know that you have cheated the undertaker out of a job,” said Vance with a laugh.