Dr. Harpe had surprisingly good shoulders for so slender a woman—white, well rounded, and with a gentle feminine slope. That she never had been given the opportunity of showing them to Crowheart had been a matter of some regret. Her chance came when Andy P. Symes celebrated the sale of $150,000 worth of bonds by an invitation ball in the dining-room of the Terriberry House.

Elation over the placing of these bonds with the estate represented by J. Collins Prescott mitigated in some slight degree the humiliation and bitterness of his feelings when, upon his return from his successful business trip, he found that not only had Grandmother Kunkel gone as she had foreseen she would go, but Dr. Harpe had resumed her visits as before and vouchsafed to him no word of explanation or apology at the deliberate violation of her promise.

In any case, as Symes saw clearly now, the fulfilment of it would have been futile so far as ending the intimacy was concerned, for the only result would have been that Augusta would have done the visiting. That he let the matter of Dr. Harpe's broken word pass without protest evidenced the completeness of his capitulation, his entire realization of the hopelessness of resistance to the situation, as did also the silence in which he accepted Augusta's cold explanation of Grandmother Kunkel's departure.

It is not likely that more time and care is devoted to the making up of the list for a court ball than Symes bestowed upon the selection of guests for the proposed function, which he intended should leave an indelible impression upon Crowheart. It was a difficult task, but when completed the result was gratifying.

No person whom Symes could even dimly foresee as being of future use to himself was omitted and with real astuteness he singled out those who had within themselves the qualities which made for future importance. Even Mrs. Abe Tutts, who, he had learned, was second cousin to a railroad president, was thrown into a state of emotional intoxication by receiving the first printed invitation of her life. Besides, Mrs. Tutts had turned her talents churchward and now ruled the church choir with an iron hand. While her husky rendition of the solo parts of certain anthems was strongly suggestive of the Bijou Theatre with its adjoining beer garden, her efforts were highly praised. This invitation demonstrated clearly that Mrs. Tutts was rising in the social scale.

It was due to a suggestion from Dr. Harpe, made through Augusta, that Van Lennop also received his first social recognition in Crowheart.

"I don't know who the fellow is," Symes demurred. In reality his reluctance was largely due to a secret resentment that Van Lennop had seemed to withstand so easily the influence of his genial personality. Their acquaintance never had passed the nodding stage and the fact had piqued Symes more than he cared to admit. "Besides, he has elected to identify himself with rather singular company."

"No doubt he has been lonely," defended Mrs. Symes mildly, "and of course Essie is pretty."

When Van Lennop found the invitation in the mail a couple of days later he frowned in mingled annoyance and amusement.

"Discovered," he said dryly, quickly guessing its import.

Dr. Harpe's increased friendliness had not escaped him and it had occurred to him that their frequent meetings were not entirely accidental. Past experiences had taught him the significance of certain signs, and when Dr. Harpe appeared with her hair curled and wearing a lingerie waist, the fact which roused the risibilities of her friends stirred in him a feeling which resembled the instinct of self-preservation.

Van Lennop's brow contracted as he re-read the invitation in his room.

"Confound it! I'm not ready to be discovered yet." Then he grinned, in spite of himself, at the hint in the corner—"full dress." He flung it contemptuously upon the washstand. "What an ass!" and it is to be feared he referred to the sole representative of the notable House of Symes.

The initial step in Crowheart toward preparing for any function was a hair washing, and the day following the mailing of the invitations saw the fortunate recipients drying their hair on their respective back steps or hanging over dividing fences with flowing locks in animated discussion of the coming event.

That there was some uncertainty as to the exact meaning of the request to wear "full dress" may be gathered from Mrs. Abe Tutts's observation, while drying a few dank hairs at Mrs. Jackson's front gate, that it was lucky she had not ripped up her accordion-pleated skirt which was as full as anybody could wear and hope to get around in!

"'Tain't that," Mrs. Jackson snorted in her face. "The fuller a dress is the less they is of it. You're thinkin' of a masquerade, maybe. Personally myself," declared Mrs. Jackson modestly, "I don't aim to expose my shoulder blades for nobody—not for nobody."

"I'd do it if I was you," replied Mrs. Tutts significantly.

"Why, if you was me?" inquired Mrs. Jackson, biting guilelessly.

"Because"—Mrs. Tutts backed out of reach.—"they's a law agin' carryin' concealed weapons."

Mrs. Tutts did not tarry to complete the drying of her hair, for Mrs. Jackson had succeeded in wrenching a paling from the fence and was fumbling at the catch on the gate.

The dining-room of the Terriberry House was a dazzling sight to the arriving guests, who were impressed to momentary speechlessness by such evidences of wealth and elegance as real carnations and smilax and a real orchestra imported from the nearest large town on the main line. The sight which held their eyes longest, however, was a large glass bowl on a table in an anteroom, beside which, self-conscious but splendid in new evening clothes, stood Mr. Symes urging an unknown but palatable beverage hospitably upon each arrival.

"This is cert'nly a swell affair," they confided to each other in whispers behind the back of their hands after the first formal greetings. "Trust Andy P. for doin' things right."

They frankly stared at each other in unaccustomed garb and sometimes as frankly laughed.

"Gosh!" said Mr. Terriberry as he sniffed the pungent atmosphere due to the odor of camphor emanating from clothing which had lain in the bottom of trunks since the wearers had "wagoned it" in from Iowa or Nebraska, "looks like you might call this here function a moth ball."

Mr. Terriberry himself gave distinction to the gathering by appearing in a dinner jacket, borrowed from the tailor, and his pearl gray wedding trousers, preserved sentimentally by Mrs. Terriberry.

Mr. Abe Tutts, in a frock coat of minstrel-like cut and plum-colored trousers of shiny diagonal cloth, claimed his share of public attention. For the sake of that peace which he had come to prize highly, Mr. Tutts had consented to make a "dude" of himself.

Mr. Percy Parrott appeared once more in the dinner clothes which upon a previous occasion had given Crowheart its first sight of the habiliment of polite society. If their exceeding snugness had caused him discomfiture then his present sensations were nothing less than anguish. His collar was too high, his collar-band too tight, the arm-holes of his jacket checked his circulation, and his waistcoat interfered with the normal action of his diaphragm, while Mr. Parrott firmly refused to sit out dances for reasons of his own. It was apparent too that he selected partners only for such numbers on the programme as called for steps of a sliding or gliding nature, for Mr. Parrott had the timid caution of an imaginative mind. Following him with anxious eyes was Mrs. Parrott looking like an India famine sufferer dÉcolletÉ.

From the bottom of that mysterious wardrobe trunk, which resembled the widow's cruse in that it seemed to have no limitations, Mrs. Abe Tutts had resurrected an aigrette which sprouted from a knob of hair tightly twisted on the top of her head. As the evening advanced and the exercise of the dance loosened Mrs. Tutts's simple coiffure, the aigrette slipped forward until that lady resembled nothing so much as a sportive unicorn.

Mrs. Terriberry was unique and also warm in a long pink boa of curled chicken feathers which she kept wound closely about her neck.

The red and feverish appearance of Mrs. Alva Jackson's eyelids was easily accounted for by the numberless French knots on her new peach-blow silk, but she felt more than repaid for so small a matter as strained eyes by the look of astonishment and envy which she surprised from Mrs. Abe Tutts, who had exhausted her ingenuity in trying to discover what she meant to wear.

Mrs. "Ed" Ricketts in black jet and sequins, dÉcolletÉ, en train, leaning on the arm of her husband, who was attired in a pair of copper-riveted overalls, new and neat, was as noticeable a figure as any lady present.

Mrs. Ricketts's French creation was a souvenir of a brief but memorable period in the history of the Ricketts family.

A few years previous Mr. Ricketts had washed $15,000 from a placer claim in an adjoining State and started at once for Europe to spend it, meaning to wash $15,000 more upon his return. In his absence some one washed it for him. When he came back with a wide knowledge of Parisian cafÉs, a carved bedstead, two four-foot candelabra and six trunks filled with Mrs. Ricketts's gowns, but no cash, it was a shock to learn that financially he was nil. After months of endeavor in other lines there seemed no alternative but to light his four-foot candelabra and die of starvation in his carved bedstead, or herd sheep, so he wisely decided upon the latter. Mrs. Ricketts adapted herself to the situation and made petticoats of her court trains and drove the sheep-wagon dÉcolletÉ, so Crowheart was more or less accustomed to Mrs. Ricketts in silk and satin.

Dr. Harpe did not come down until the evening was well along, but the delay produced the effect she intended. As she appeared, fresh and cool with her hair in perfect order, at the end of a number which left the dancers red and dishevelled, she caused a sensation that could not well have been otherwise than flattering. Crowheart stared in candid amazement and admiration.

Her sheer, white gown fell from sloping, well powdered shoulders and its filminess softened wonderfully the lines which were beginning to harden her face. She had dressed with the eagerness of a dÉbutante, and her eyes were luminous, her cheeks delicately flushed with the excitement of it and with happiness at the visible impression she was making.

Dr. Harpe could, upon occasions, assume an air which gave her a certain distinction of carriage and manner which was the direct antithesis of the careless, swaggering, unfeminine creature that Crowheart knew, and as she now came slowly into the ballroom it is little wonder that a buzz went round after the first flattering silence of astonishment, for even a stranger would have singled her out at a glance from the perspiring female crudities upon the floor.

She looked younger by years and with that unexpected winsomeness which was her charm. The murmur of approval was a tribute to her femininity that was music in her ears. The night promised to be one of triumph which she intended to enjoy to the utmost, but to her it ensured more than that, for Ogden Van Lennop was there, as she had seen in one swift glance, and it meant, perhaps, her "chance."

For reasons of his own Van Lennop finally decided to accept the invitation which at first thought he fully intended to refuse. He figured that he had time to telegraph for his clothes, and this he did with the result that Crowheart stared as hard almost at him as at Dr. Harpe's amazing transformation. The reserved, unapproachable stranger in worn corduroys, who had come to be tacitly recognized as an object of suspicion, was not readily reconciled with this suave, self-possessed young man in clothes which they felt intuitively were correct in every detail. He moved among them with a savoir-faire which was new to Crowheart, talking easily and with flattering deference to this neglected lady and that, agreeable to a point which left them animated and coquettish. He danced with Mrs. Terriberry, he escorted Mrs. Tutts to the punch bowl, he threw Mrs. Jackson's scarf about her shoulders with a gallantry that turned Jackson green, a neat compliment sent Mrs. Percy Parrott off in a series of the hysterical shrieks which always followed when Mrs. Parrott found herself at a loss for words. Long before Dr. Harpe's appearance it had begun to dawn upon Crowheart that in holding aloof in unfriendly suspicion the loss had been theirs, for it was being borne in even upon their ignorance that Van Lennop's sphere was one in which they did not "belong."

Dr. Harpe quickly demonstrated that she was easily the best dancer in the room, and there was no dearth of partners after the first awe of her had worn off, but her satisfaction in her night of triumph was not complete until Van Lennop's name was upon her programme.

Essie Tisdale, busy elsewhere, had her first glimpse of the ballroom where Van Lennop claimed his dance. She grew white even to her lips, and her knees shook unaccountably beneath her as she watched Dr. Harpe glide the length of the room in Van Lennop's arms. The momentary pain she felt in her heart had the poignancy of an actual stab. It was so—so unexpected; he had so unequivocally ranged himself upon her side, he had seen so plainly Dr. Harpe's illy-concealed venom and resented it in his quiet way, as she had thought, that this seemed like disloyalty, and in the first shock of bewilderment and pain Essie Tisdale was conscious only that the one person in all the world upon whom she had felt she could count was being taken from her.

Van Lennop had told her of his invitation in amusement and later had remarked carelessly that he might accept, but apparently had given it no further thought. Even in her unhappiness the girl was fair to her merciless enemy. She looked well—far, far more attractive than Essie would have believed possible, softer, more feminine and—more dangerous. Van Lennop was human; and, after all, as she was forced to recognize more and more fully, she was only the pretty biscuit-shooter of the Terriberry House. Essie Tisdale pushed the swinging doors from her with a shaking hand and managed somehow to get back into the kitchen where, as she thought, with a strange, new bitterness, she belonged.

Van Lennop did not leave Dr. Harpe when the waltz was done, but seated himself beside her, first parting the curtain that she might get the air and showing a solicitude for her comfort so different from the cold, impersonal courtesy of months that her heart beat high with triumph. Verily, this propitious beginning was all she needed and, she told herself again, was all she asked. While she believed in herself and her personal charm when she chose to exercise it, Van Lennop's tacit recognition of it brightened her eyes and softened her face into smiling curves of happiness.

Van Lennop toyed with her fan and talked idly of impersonal things, but there was a veiled look of curiosity in his eyes, a kind of puzzled wonder each time that they rested upon her face. As he covertly studied her altered expression and manner, strongly conscious of the different atmosphere which she created, there rose persistently in his mind Stevenson's story of the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He could not conceive a more striking example of dual personality or double consciousness than Dr. Harpe now presented. There was a girlish shyness in her fluttering glance, honesty in the depths of her limpid hazel eyes, while her white, unmarred forehead suggested the serenity of a good woman, and Van Lennop was dimly conscious that for some undefined reason he never had thought of her as that. She had personal magnetism—that he had conceded from the first, for invariably he had found himself sensible of her presence even when disliking her the most. To-night he was more strongly aware of it than ever.

"You are enjoying the evening?"

"Isn't that apparent?" A twinkle shone for a moment in his eyes. "And you?" adding quickly, "An unnecessary question—your face is the answer."

She laughed lightly.

"It doesn't belie me, for I like this—immensely. Flossying up occasionally helps me keep my self-respect. You didn't expect to find this sort of thing out here, did you?"

He looked at her oddly, not sure that she was serious. Was it possible that she did not see the raw absurdity of it all? Somehow he had thought that she "belonged" a little more than this; her unusual self-possession gave the impression perhaps. He glanced at the attenuated Mrs. Percy Parrott, at Mrs. Sylvanus Starr, exhilarated by numerous glasses of punch, capering through an impromptu cakewalk with Tinhorn Frank, at Mrs. Andy P. Symes, solemn and as stiffly erect as a ramrod, trying to manage her first train, and Van Lennop's lips curved upward ever so slightly, but his voice had the proper gravity when he replied:

"Scarcely."

She shot a quick look at him.

"You don't like it," she asserted.

Van Lennop smiled slightly at her keenness.

"To be candid, I don't. The West has always been a bit of a hobby of mine since I was a lad and adored Davy Crockett and strained my eyes over the adventures of Lewis and Clark. I like the picturesqueness, the naturalness, the big, kind spirit of the old days and I'm sorry to see them go—prematurely—for that which takes their place makes no appeal to the heart or the imagination. It is only a—well—a poor imitation of something else.

"With no notion of criticising my host, I must say, that in my opinion those who introduce these innovations"—he included the ballroom with a slight movement of her folded fan—"are robbing the West of its greatest charm. But then," he concluded lightly, and with a slight inclination of his head, "if I were a woman and the results of—er—'flossying up' were as gratifying as in your case, for instance, I might welcome such opportunities."

Dr. Harpe raised her eyes to his for one fluttering second and achieved a blush while he smiled down upon her with the faint, impersonal smile which was oftenest on his face.

"Just this once, my dear, and I won't ask you to go in there again. I know how hard it must be for you."

"Not at all"—Essie had looked at Mrs. Terriberry bravely—"I will do whatever is to be done."

She picked up a tray of fresh glasses for the table in the well patronized anteroom as she spoke and passed through the swinging door in time to see Dr. Harpe's uplifted eyes and blush and Van Lennop's answering smile.

The glasses jingled upon the tray in her unsteady hand, but her little mouth shut in a red, straight line as she nerved herself for the ordeal of passing them. She came toward them with her head erect and a set look upon her young, almost childish face, and Van Lennop catching sight of her intuitively guessed something of her thoughts and interpreted aright the strained look upon her white face.

"She thinks me disloyal," flashed into his mind, and he all but smiled at the idea.

Swift as was the passing of the softly interested expression upon Van Lennop's face, Dr. Harpe caught it and involuntarily turned her head to follow his gaze.

Essie Tisdale! Her face hardened and all her slumbering jealousy and hatred of the girl leaped to life in a mad, unreasoning desire to do her harm, bodily harm; she tingled with a longing to inflict physical pain.

The whirling dancers made it necessary for Essie to pass close, close enough to brush the skirts of the women occupying the chairs along the wall, and as she came toward them with her head erect, looking straight before her, Dr. Harpe acted upon an unconquerable impulse and slid her slippered toe from beneath her skirt. There was a crash of glass as the girl tripped and fell headlong. Tinhorn Frank guffawed; a few of his ilk did likewise, but the laughter died upon their lips at the blazing glance Van Lennop flashed them.

"Essie, you are hurt! Your hand is bleeding!"

Dr. Harpe shut her teeth hard at the concern in Van Lennop's voice as he helped the girl to her feet, but there was solicitude in her tone when she said:

"Let me see if there's glass in it, Essie."

The girl hesitated for an instant, then with an enigmatical smile extended her hand, but there was nothing enigmatical in the sidelong look which Van Lennop gave Dr. Harpe, a look that, had she seen it, would for once have made her grateful for her sex. Subconsciously he had seen the slight movement of her foot and leg as Essie Tisdale passed, but had not grasped its significance until the girl fell.

"I don't think there's any glass in it, but wash it out well and bring me a bandage. You got a hard fall; you must have slipped."

"Yes, I must have slipped." Her smile this time was ironic.

The night fulfilled the promise of the evening. It was a succession of triumphs for Dr. Harpe. The floor was air beneath her feet and the combination of insidious punch and sensuous music turned her cold, slow-running blood to fire. She was the undisputed belle of the evening, and they took the trailing smilax from the side lamps on the wall and made her a wreath in laughing acknowledgment of the fact. It was such an hour as she had dreamed of and the reality fulfilled every expectation.

She had attracted Van Lennop to herself at last; she had aroused and held his interest as she had known she could and she had sent Essie Tisdale sprawling ridiculously at his feet. She had shown Crowheart how she could look when she tried—what she could do and be with only half an effort. In other words, she had proved to Van Lennop and to Crowheart that she was a success as a woman as well as a doctor. What more could any one person ask? The road to the end looked smooth before her. She wanted to scream, to shriek aloud in exultation. Her cheeks burned, her eyes blazed triumph. She had the feeling that it was the climax of her career, that no more satisfying hour could come to her unless perhaps it was the day she married Ogden Van Lennop. And she owed nothing, she thought as she whirled dizzily in Mr. Terriberry's arms, to anyone but herself. Every victory, every step forward since she arrived penniless and unknown in Crowheart had been due to her brains and efforts. She raised her chin arrogantly. She had never been thwarted and the person was not born who could defeat her ultimately in any ambition! Her mental elation gave her a feeling akin to omnipotence.

A clicking sound in Mr. Terriberry's throat due to an ineffectual effort to moisten his lips brought the realization that her own throat and mouth were parched.

"Let's stop and hit one up," she whispered feverishly. "I'm dry as a fish."

Mr. Terriberry seemed to check himself in midair.

"I kin hardly swaller."

He led the way to the anteroom and she followed, swaying a little both from the dizzy dance and the effects of previous visits to the punch bowl. The hour was late and the remaining guests were rapidly casting aside the strained dignity which their clothes and the occasion had seemed to demand. Observing that Van Lennop had made his adieux, Dr. Harpe also felt a sudden freedom from restraint.

Mr. Terriberry filled a glass to the brim and executed a notable bow as he handed it to her.

"To the fairest of the fair," said Mr. Terriberry gallantly, protruding his upper lip over the edge of his glass something in the manner of a horse gathering in the last oat in his box.

Dr. Harpe raised her glass to arms' length and cried exultantly—

"To my Supreme Moment!"

Mr. Terriberry, who had closed his eyes while the cooling beverage flowed down his throat, opened them again.

"Huh?"

Again she swung her glass above her head and shrilled—

"My Supreme Moment—drink to it if you're a friend of mine!"

"Frien' of yours? Frien' of yours! Why, Doc, I'd die fer you. But that's all same Ogollalah Sioux 'bout your S'preme Moment! Many of 'em, Doc, many of 'em, and here's t'you!"

They drained their glasses together.

"Always liked you, Doc. H'nest t'God, from the first minute I laid eyes on you." Mr. Terriberry reached for her fan dangling from the end of its chain and began to fan her with tender solicitude.

"Come on, let's have another drink; I don't cut loose often." Her eyes and voice were reckless.

"Me and you don't want to go out of here with our ropes draggin'," protested Mr. Terriberry in feeble hesitation. "Let's go out on the porch fer a minute an' look at the meller moon."

"Meller moon nothin'! Come on, don't be a piker." She was ladling punch into each of their glasses.

"Ah-h-h! Ain't that great cough mixture!" Mr. Terriberry rolled his eyes in ecstasy as he once more saw the bottom of his glass. "Doc, 'bout one more and me and you couldn't hit the groun' with our hats." Mr. Terriberry speared a bit of pineapple with the long nail of his forefinger and added ambiguously: "M'bet you."

"Aw, g'long! Food for infants, this—wish I had a barrel of it."

"Doc, you got a nawful capac'ty." Mr. Terriberry looked at her in languishing admiration. "That's why I like you. Honest t'God I hate to see a lady go under the table firs' shot out o' the box. Now my wife,"—suddenly remembering the existence of that lady Mr. Terriberry tiptoed to the door and endeavored to locate her—"my wife," he continued in a confidential whisper, "can't take two drinks t'hout showing it. Doc,"—Mr. Terriberry's chin quivered as the pathos of the fact swept over him—"Doc, Merta's no sport." Mr. Terriberry buried his face in his highly perfumed handkerchief as he confessed his wife's shortcomings.

"Aw, dry up! Take another and forget it," replied his unsympathetic confidante crossly.

Mr. Terriberry looked up in quick cheerfulness.

"Le's do, Doc. Do you know I hate water—just plain water. If it'll rot your boots what'll it do to your stummick!"

A man breathless from haste appeared in the doorway of the anteroom.

"Dr. Harpe——"

"What is it?" She did not turn around.

"A case came in at the hospital—feller shot, down the street."

"Where's Lamb?" she demanded irritably.

"Out of town."

"Thunder!" She stamped her foot impatiently. "Who is it?" she scowled.

"Billy Duncan. He's bleedin' bad, Doc." There was a note of entreaty in his voice.

"All right," she answered shortly, "I'll be down."

"Frien' of yours?" inquired Terriberry.

"Friend? No. One of those damned hoboes on the Ditch. Looks like he might have taken some other night than this."

"Don't blame you 'tall, Doc. I gotta get to work and fin' Merta. If you see Merta——" Mr. Terriberry suddenly realized that he was talking to himself.

As Dr. Harpe made her way to the cloak-room she was conscious that it was well she was leaving. The lights were blurring rapidly, the dancers in the ballroom were unrecognizable and indistinct, she was sensible, too, of the increasing thickness of her tongue. Yet more than ever she wanted to laugh hysterically, to scream, to boast before them all of the things she had done and of those she meant to do. Yes, decidedly, it was time she was leaving, her saner self told her.

She fumbled among the wraps in the cloak-room until she found her own, then, steadying herself by running her fingertips along the wall, she slipped from the hotel without being observed.

"Made a good getaway that time," she muttered.

Her lips felt stiff and dry and she moistened them frequently as she stumbled across the hummocks of sagebrush growing on the vacant lots between the hospital and the hotel. She fell, and cursed aloud as she felt the sting of cacti spines in her palm. She sat where she fell and tried to extract them by the light of the moon. Then she arose and stumbled on.

"God! I'm drunk—jus' plain drunk," she said thickly, and was glad that there would be no one but Nell Beecroft about.

Nell was safe. She had long since attended to that. They shared too many secrets in common for Nell to squeal. Nell was not easily shocked. She laughed foolishly at the thought of Nell being shocked and wondered what could do it.

Her contract with Symes called for a graduate nurse—Dr. Harpe snorted—a graduate nurse for hoboes! Nell was cheaper, and even if her reputation was more than doubtful she was big and husky—and they understood each other. The right woman in the right place, and with Lamb helped form a trio that stood for harmony and self-protection.

"Graduate nurse for hoboes!" She muttered it scornfully again. "Not on your tintype!"

She fell against the kitchen door and it opened with her weight.

"Hullo, Nell!" She blinked foolishly in the glare of the light.

The woman looked at her in silence.

"Hullo, I say!" The cloak slipped from her bare shoulders and she lunged toward a chair.

The flush on her face had faded and her color was ghastly, a grayish white, the pallor of an anÆmic; the many short hairs on her forehead and temples hung straight in her eyes, the filmy flounce of her gown was torn and trailing, while a scraggly bunch of Russian thistle clung to the chiffon ruffles of her silk drop-skirt.

The woman stood in the centre of the kitchen with her arms akimbo—a huge raw-boned creature of a rough, frontier type.

She spoke at last.

"Well, you're a sight!"

"Been celebratin', Nell," she chuckled gleefully, "been celebratin' my S'preme Moment."

"You'd better git in there and fix that feller's arm or we'll be celebratin' a funeral," the woman answered curtly. "He's bleedin' like a stuck pig."

"That's what he is—good joke, Nell. Where'd it happen?" She seated herself in a chair and slid until her head rested on the back, her sprawling legs outstretched.

"Gun fight at the dance hall. Look here," she took her roughly by the arm, "I tell you he's bad off. You gotta git in there and do somethin'."

"Shut up! Lemme be!" She pulled loose from the nurse's grasp, but arose, nevertheless, and staggered down the long hallway into the room where the new patient lay moaning softly upon the narrow iron cot.

"Hullo, Bill Duncan!"

His moaning ceased and he said faintly in relief—

"Oh, I'm glad! I thought you'd never come, Doc."

"Say," her voice was quarrelsome, "do you think I've nothin' to do but wait at the beck and call of you wops?"

The boy, for he was only that, looked surprise and resentment at the epithet, but he was too weak to waste his strength in useless words.

She raised his arm bound in its blood-soaked rags roughly and he groaned.

"Keep still, you calf!"

He shut his teeth hard and the sweat of agony stood out on his pallid face as she twisted and pulled and probed with clumsy, drunken fingers.

"Nell!" she called thickly.

The woman was watching from the doorway.

"Get the hypodermic and I'll give him a shot of hop, then I'm goin' to bed. Lamb can look after him when he comes. I'm not goin' to monkey with him now."

"But, Doc," the boy protested, "don't leave me like this. The bullet's in there yet, and a piece of my shirt. The boys pulled out some, but they couldn't reach the rest. Ain't you goin' to clean out the hole or something? I'm scart of blood-poisonin', Doc, for I've seen how it works," he pleaded.

His protest angered her.

"God! but you're wise with your talk of blood-poisonin'! You bums from the Ditch give me more trouble and do more kickin' than all my private patients put together. What do you want for a dollar a month"—she sneered—"a special nurse? A shot in the arm will shut your mouth till morning anyhow."

She shoved up the sleeve of his night clothes on the good arm and gripped his wrist; then she jabbed the needle viciously.

His colorless lips were shut in a straight line and in his pain-stricken eyes there was not so much anger now as a great wonder. Was this the woman of whose acquaintance he had been proud, by whose bow of recognition he always had felt flattered; this woman whose free speech and careless good-nature he had defended against the occasional criticism of coarser minds? This woman with her reeking breath and an expression which seen through a mist of pain made her face look like that of Satan himself, was it possible that she had had his liking and respect? He was still wondering when the drowsiness of the drug seized him and he slipped away into sleep.

Dr. Harpe gathered his clothes from the foot of the bed as she passed out.

"Did he have anything on him, Nell?"

"No."

"They must have cleaned him out down below." She jerked her head toward the dance hall as she turned a pocket inside out. "A dollar watch and a jack-knife." She threw them both contemptuously upon the kitchen table. "If he wakes up bellerin', shove the needle into him—you can do it as well as I can. I'm goin' to bed."

She lunged down the corridor once more and Nell Beecroft stood looking after with a curious expression of derision and contempt upon her hard face.

Dr. Harpe threw herself upon the bed in one of the private rooms and soon her loud breathing told Nell Beecroft that she was in the heavy sleep of drink. The nurse opened the door and stood by the bedside looking down upon her as she lay dressed as she had come from the dance, on the outside of the counterpane. One bare arm was thrown over her head, the other was hanging limply over the edge of the bed, her loose hair was a snarled mass upon the pillow and her open mouth gave her face an empty, sodden look that was bestial.

"I wonder what your swell friends would say to you now?" the woman muttered, staring at her through narrowed lids. "Those private patients that you're always bragging swear by you? What would they say if I should tell 'em that just bein' plain drunk like any common prostitute was the least of——" she checked herself and glanced into the hallway. "What would they think if they knew you as I know you—what would they say if I told them only half?" Her mouth dropped in a contemptuous smile. "They wouldn't believe me—they'd say I lied about their 'lady doc.'"

She went on in sneering self-condemnation—

"I'm nothin'—just nothin'; drug up among the worst; no learnin'—no raisin'—but her—her!" Nell Beecroft's lips curled in indescribable scorn. "She's worse than nothin', for she's had her chanst!"

There was no color in the East, only a growing light which made Dr. Harpe look ashen and haggard when she crawled from the bed and looked at herself in a square of glass on the wall.

"You sure don't look like a spring chicken in the cold, gray dawn, Harpe," she said aloud as she made a wry face and ran out her tongue. "Bilious! A dose of nux vomica for you. That mixed stuff does knock a fellow's stomach out and no mistake. Moses! I look fierce."

Her head ached dully, her mouth and throat felt parched, and yet withal she had a feeling of contentment the reason for which did not immediately penetrate her dull consciousness. She realized only that some agreeable happening had left her with a sensation of warmth about her heart.

As she fumbled on the floor for hair-pins, yawning sleepily until her jaws cracked, she wondered what it was. She stopped in the midst of twisting her loose hair and her face lighted in sudden recollection. Ogden Van Lennop! Ah, that was it. She remembered now. She had broken down his prejudice; she had partially won him over; she had been the "hit" of the evening; further conquests were in sight and within easy reach if she played her cards right. And Essie Tisdale—her long upper lip stretched in its mirthless smile—she would not have her feelings this morning for a goodly sum.

The thought of Van Lennop accelerated her movements. She must get back to the hotel before Crowheart was astir, for it might be her ill-luck to bump into Van Lennop starting on one of his early morning rides. She had no desire that he should see her in her present plight.

The closeness of the illy-ventilated hospital, with its odors of disinfectants and sickness, nauseated her slightly as she opened the door and stepped into the hallway. She frowned at the delirious mutterings of a typhoid patient at the end of the corridor, for it reminded her of a threatening epidemic in one of the camps. The sharper moans of Billy Duncan, whose inflamed and swollen arm was wringing from him ejaculations of pain, recalled vaguely to her mind something of the incident of the night before.

Hearing her step, he called aloud as she passed the door—

"Won't somebody give me a drink? Please, please give me a drink! I'm choked!"

"Nell will be up directly," she answered over her shoulder. There was no time to lose, for the day was coming fast.

She lifted her torn and trailing flounce and pulled her cloak about her bare shoulders as she opened the street door. The air felt good upon her hot forehead and she breathed deep of it. The East was pink now, but the town was still as silent as the grave save for the sound of escaping steam from the early morning train. Happening to glance toward the station, something in the appearance of a man carrying a suitcase across the cinders attracted her attention and caused her to slacken her pace. It looked like Ogden Van Lennop. It was Ogden Van Lennop. He was leaving! What did it mean? Her air-castles collapsed with a thud which left her limp.

She kept on toward the hotel, but her step lagged. What did she care who saw her now? Surely, she reassured herself, he was not leaving for good—like this. It was certainly strange.

Entering the hotel through the unlocked office door she found the night lamp still burning and Terriberry was nowhere about. That was curious, for he was always up when any of his guests were leaving on the early train.

Van Lennop's decision must have been sudden. What could be the explanation?

There was a letter propped against the lamp on a table behind the office desk and, as she surmised, it was addressed to Mr. Terriberry in Van Lennop's handwriting. Looking closer she saw the end of a second envelope behind the first. To whom could he have written? In some respects Dr. Harpe had the curiosity of a servant and it now prompted her to walk behind the desk and gratify it.

"Miss Essie Tisdale" was the address on the second envelope. Instantly her face changed and the swift, jealous rage of the evening before swept over her again.

She ground her teeth together as she regarded the letter with malice glittering in her heavy eyes. He was writing to her, then, the little upstart, that infernal little biscuit-shooter!

Shorty, the cook, was rattling the kitchen range. She listened a moment. There was no other sound. She thrust the letter quickly beneath the line of her low-cut bodice and tiptoed up the stairs with slinking, feline stealth.