m Kansas. "Poison! Oh, Willyam, what
shall we do?" But the postmaster was unable to offer any aid or counsel.

"I just left it there in the window," explained Curly, excitedly; "I was
goin' to put out some baits around a water hole, about to-morrow."

"Oh, it's awful!" sobbed the woman from Kansas. "What shall we do? What
shall we do?"

"Doc," said Curly to Doc Tomlinson, "you run the drug store--ain't you
got no anecdote for this?" Doc Tomlinson could only shake his head
mournfully. A ring of bearded, beweaponed men gathered about the little
sufferer, hopeless, at their wits' end.

Constance and her father, hurrying to learn the cause of the commotion,
received but incoherent answers to their questions. "Good Lord! girl,
that child's hurt!" cried Ellsworth, helpless as the others. "What'll we
do?"

Constance did not even reply to him. Without his assistance, indeed
without looking to right or left, she made straight through the circle of
men, who gave way to admit her.

"What's the trouble here? What's wrong?" she demanded sharply, catching
the weeping woman by the arm, even as she reached out a hand toward the
suffering Arabella.

"Poison!" wailed the woman from Kansas again. "She's goin' to die!
There ain't no way to help it."

"What poison--what has the child taken?" asked Constance.

"It was strychnine, ma'am, like enough," ventured Curly. "There was
some--"

"Nonsense! It's not strychnine," cried the girl. In an instant her eye
had caught what every other individual present had overlooked, although
it was certainly the most obvious object in all the landscape,--the
half-empty can which still remained tightly clutched in Arabella's free
hand.

"Why, here it is!" she exclaimed. "The child has eaten concentrated lye.
Quick! Get her in somewhere. What are you standing around here for--get
out of the way, you men!"

They scattered, and Constance glanced about her. "Where's some
grease--some lard? Quick!" she called out to Whiteman, who was looking
on.

"In here, lady--dis vay," he answered eagerly; but she outfooted him to
the rear of the store, carrying Arabella in her arms. Spying a lard tin,
she thrust off the cover, and plunged in a hand. Immediately the sobs of
Arabella changed to sputterings, for the physician in charge had covered
her face, lips, and a goodly portion of the interior of her mouth and
throat with the ameliorating unguent! At this act of first aid, the
wails