igh-strung, too;
she's got a temper."

Dr. Harpe lifted a shoulder.

"She'd better have my friendship than my enmity, even if she has a
temper."

"Essie's mighty well liked here," Mrs. Terriberry returned quickly.

"Popularity is a mighty uncertain asset in a small town."

"Don't forget that yourself, Doc," returned Mrs. Terriberry, nettled by
her tone.

Dr. Harpe laughed good-naturedly; she had no desire to antagonize Mrs.
Terriberry.

She watched the Dago Duke hold up a warning finger as Essie placed the
heavy hotel dishes before him.

"Be careful, Miss, be very careful not to nick this fragile ware. As a
lover of ceramic art, it would pain me to see it injured."

The girl dimpled, and, in spite of herself, burst into a trill of
laughter which was so merry and contagious that the grave stranger
beside him looked up at her with an interested and amused smile as
though seeing her for the first time.

"Breakfasting at the Terriberry House was a pleasure which seemed a long
way off last night," observed the Dago Duke without embarrassment. "You
heard the imprisoned bird singing for his liberty? Music to soothe the
savage breast of your sheriff. When I am myself I can converse in five
languages; when I am drunk it is my misfortune to be able only to sing
or holler. Your jail is a disgrace to Crowheart; I've never been in a
worse one. The mattress is lumpy and the pillow hard; I was voicing my
protest."

"I don't care why you sing so long as you sing," said Essie, dimpling
again. "It was beautiful, but isn't it bad for your health to get
so--drunk?"

"Not at all," returned the Dago Duke airily. "Look at me--fresh as a
rock-rose with the dew on it!"

Again the grave stranger smiled but rather at Essie Tisdale's laughter
than his companion's brazen humor.

He interested Dr. Harpe, this other stranger, and as soon as her
breakfast was finished she looked for his name upon the register.

"Ogden Van Lennop," she read, and his address was a little town in the
county. She shook her head and said to herself: "He never came from this
neck of the woods. Another black sheep, I wonder?"

Dr. Harpe lost no time in agitating the subject of a church and it
tickled Crowheart's risibilities, since she was the last person to be
suspected of spiritual yearnings--her personality seeming incongruous
with religious fervor. But while they laughed it was with good-nature
and approval for it merely confirmed them in their opin