't want lodging, anyhow."

The landlord came staggering in with an armload of cheap bed-covers and
threw them down where his dragoon of a wife directed with imperious
gesture.

"Just look at all that money invested and no return!" she lamented.

The battered stranger appealed to the landlord, repeating his question.

"None of your business," the landlord replied crabbedly. "But they're
gone, if that'll do you any good."

"Did they leave two grips--a suitcase and a doctor's instrument-case--with
you?" inquired the man.

"They left a pie-anno and a foldin'-bed, and a automobile and a
safety-razor!" said the landlord, looking reproachfully at his big wife,
who was motioning him out to his labors again.

"Or any word for Dr. Slavens?" the stranger pursued with well-contained
patience.

"What do you want to know for?" asked the woman, turning upon him
suddenly.

"Because the grips belonged to me, madam; I am Dr. Slavens."

The landlord looked at him sharply.

"Oh, you're the feller that went off on a drunk, ain't you? I remember
you now. Well, they didn't leave no grips here."

"And no word either that I know of," added the woman.

She swept Dr. Slavens with wondering eyes, for she had held a pretty
good opinion of him before his sudden, and evidently heavy, fall.

"But where in this world have you been, man?" she asked.

"Nowhere in _this_ world," he answered. "I've been taking a little
side-trip to hell!"

"You cert'nly look like it, mister!" the woman shuddered, closing the
wide V at her bosom, the flaring garment clutched in her great
ring-encumbered hand.

"Will you tell me, then, about my friends?" he asked.

"Gone; that's all we know," said she.

"Part went on the train, two or three days ago; some went on the stage;
and the rest left in a wagon this morning," said the landlord.

But he couldn't tell who went on the train, the stage, or the wagon. It
was none of his business, he said. They paid their bill; that was all he
knew, or cared.

"May I take a look around the tent to see if they left any written word
for me there?" the doctor requested.

"Go on," said the woman, a little softening of sympathy coming into her
hard eyes.

Dr. Slavens went back to the tent, which stood as it had been left that
morning when the last of the party went away. The canvas under which
their table stood stretched there hospitably still, and the stove with
the morning's ashes cold upon its little hearth. Ins