the family be doing while I'm burgling?"

"Mrs. Carpy and the girls are in Medicine Bend. The house is empty.
When you're through, leave the key in the skull of the skeleton behind
the door."

Sawdy stared without much enthusiasm at the little key that Laramie
passed to him; then he slipped it without comment into his pocket. The
talk went on in low, leisurely tones until the second portion of ham
had been served, when both resumed their supper as if nothing had been
eaten or said. Afterward, Laramie spent an hour getting together some
things he needed at home. He met Sawdy later at Kitchen's barn.
Sawdy, with abundance of grumbling at his assignment, had the gauze and
the catgut, but he had brought the key back. He could not find the
surgeon's needles. There seemed nothing for it but for Laramie to go
to the office and make the search himself. He thought of Belle; she
would do it for him, he knew, but he felt it would not be right to mix
her up in what might prove a still more tragic affair. After brief
reflection he started for Carpy's himself.

The doctor's house stood back of Main Street, a block and a half from
the barn. Laramie walked half a mile to reach it, choosing unlighted
ways for the trip. The night was dark and by crossing a vacant lot he
reached the rear of the house unobserved. The office, divided into a
consulting room and an operating room, consisted of a one-story wing
connecting with the residence--the consulting room adjoining the
residence, the operating room occupying the end of the wing. This
latter was the room Laramie sought. The window that Sawdy had already
burglariously entered, opened easily, and Laramie, standing alone in
the dark room, felt in his pocket for a match.

He had been in the office more than once before and knew about where
the cabinet containing the surgical instruments stood. A connecting
door led from the room he had entered to the office proper. He tried
this. It was unlocked and he left it closed. The curtains of the
windows were drawn and he took a match from his pocket, lighted it and
looked around. The first thing he saw was the articulated skeleton
suspended near the door from the ceiling. It would have been a shock
had he not seen it before and been familiar with the label fastened to
the breastbone reciting that this had once been Flat Nose George, an
early day desperado of the high country.

Turning from this relic, Laramie set about his wor