he wants, and I'm prepared to stand by it even if I
drop money on it. It may be foolish"--looking around for applause,
but his audience were not in the mental condition to discuss fine
ethical points--"but I'm prepared to do it."

Dr. Clay, standing on the outer edge of the crowd, heard all this. He
made his way to the bar. "Where is Bill Cavers, now?" he asked.

The gleam in the doctor's eyes should have warned the bartender to be
discreet in his answers. "Well, I can't just say," he answered with
mock politeness, resenting the tone of the doctor's question. "He
didn't leave word with me, but I guess he's getting his photo taken."

"Did you set him drunk and then turn him out in this blazing sun?"
the doctor asked, in a voice so tense with anger that the audience,
befuddled as they were, drew closer to see what it was all about.

"We never keep people longer than is necessary," the bartender
said, with an evil smile, "and besides, Bill was due at the
photographer's."

Before the doctor knew what he was doing his right arm flew out and
landed a smashing blow on the bartender's smirking face, a blow that
sent him crashing into the bottles behind him. He recovered in an
instant, and the doctor's quick eye caught the flash of a knife in
his hand as he came over the bar at him. With a swift blow the doctor
knocked the knife from his hand, and, grasping him by the coat
collar, he dragged him to the back door, and then, raising him on the
toe of his boot, landed him in the middle of the mud-puddle that had
been left by the morning's rain.

The bartender was just gathering himself up when Sandy Braden drove
up to the stable door with his pacer.

Meanwhile Pearl had continued the search for Mrs. Cavers and Libby
Anne. She was on her way to Mrs. Burrell's when she caught sight of
something like a parasol down in the trees where the horses were
tied. She ran down to the picnic grounds hastily, and there, in a
grassy hollow, shaded by a big elm, she found the objects of her
search.

Bill Cavers, with purple face and wide open mouth, lay breathing
heavily. Libby Anne was fanning him with her muslin hat, and Mrs.
Cavers was tenderly bathing his swollen face with water Libby Anne
had brought from the river. Her own eyes were red with crying and
hopeless with defeat.

"We've just found him, Pearl," she said. "He's been here in the hot
sun I don't know how long. I never saw him breathing so queer
before."

"I'll get the