. At last she arose uncertainly and said in a voice which was
barely audible:

"I will go."

And so it happened that while Dr. Emma Harpe was saying good-by to a few
wondering acquaintances who accompanied her to the station, Essie
Tisdale was making preparations for a dance which was an event in the
embryotic metropolis of Crowheart, several hundred miles away.

Crowheart was booming and the news of its prosperity had spread.
Settlers were hurrying toward it from the Middle West to take up
homesteads and desert claims in the surrounding country. There was no
specific reason why the town should boom, but it did boom in that
mysterious fashion which far western towns have, up to a certain stage,
after which the reaction sets in.

But there was no thought of reaction now. All was life, eagerness,
good-nature, boundless belief in a great and coming prosperity. The Far
West and the Middle West greeted each other with cordial, outstretched
hands and this dance, though given by a single individual, was in the
nature of a reception from the old settlers to the new as well as to
celebrate the inception of an undertaking which was to insure
Crowheart's prosperity for all time.

Crowheart was platted on a sagebrush "bench" on a spur of a branch
railroad. The snow-covered peaks of a lofty range rose skyward in the
west. To the north was the solitary butte from which the town received
its name. To the south was a line of dimpled foothills, while eastward
stretched a barren vista of cactus, sand, and sagebrush. A shallow
stream flowed between alkali-coated banks on two sides of the town. In
the spring when melting mountain snows filled it to overflowing, it ran
swift and yellow; but in the late fall and winter it dropped to an
inconsequential creek of clear water, hard with alkali. The inevitable
"Main Street" was wide and its two business blocks consisted of
one-story buildings of log and unpainted pine lumber. There was the
inevitable General Merchandise Store with its huge sign on the high
front, and the inevitable newspaper which always exists, like the
faithful at prayer, where two or three are gathered together. There were
saloons in plenty with irrelevant and picturesque names, a dance hall
and a blacksmith shop. The most conspicuous and pretentious building in
Crowheart was the Terriberry House, bilious in color and Spartan in its
architecture, located in the centre of Main Street on a corner. The
houses as yet were ch