Satisfied from the first that the alleged victim was a drunken tramp, who submitted to have a hole bored in his head in order to foist himself upon the ranch, they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy between Josephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, as he had already in the spare bedroom.

"Didn't all that yer happen THE VERY NIGHT she pretended to go for Stephen--eh ?" said Mrs.Forsyth.
"Tell me that! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggy to bring him here, as that sneaking doctor let out--eh?
Looks mighty curious, don't it ?" she muttered darkly to the old man.

But although that gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would scarcely have submitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as the price of insuring comfortable dependency, he had no doubt others were base enough to do it; and lent a willing ear to his wife's suspicions.
Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further.
Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disappointment at the incomplete results of the operation.

He had saved the man's life, but as yet not his reason.

There was still hope, however, for the diagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favorable progress.