a charlatan in every instinct--greedy,
unscrupulous, covering the ignorance of an untrained mind with a cloak
of solemn and pious pretence which served its purpose in the uncritical,
unsuspicious western community where a profession is always regarded
with more or less awe.

Lamb's colorless personality had made no great impression upon Crowheart
and as yet he was known chiefly through his professional card which
appeared among the advertisements in the Crowheart _Courier_. Dr. Harpe
had not reckoned him a formidable rival, but she recognized in him an
invaluable associate; and often as she contemplated his pasty face, his
close, deep-set eyes and listened to his nasal voice she congratulated
herself upon her choice, for he was what she needed most of all, a
pliable partner.

"Be you goin' to put up a sign?" inquired Lamb.

"Sure; we want all the advertisin' we can get out of this, don't we?"
And soon the day came when the two partners stood across the street and
read proudly:

HARPE AND LAMB HOSPITAL

In her new buggy with its flashing wheels Dr. Harpe was soon driving
through the different camps along the project, and the laborers rather
enjoyed the novelty of visits from the "lady doc," as they called her,
and consented good-naturedly enough to the deduction of monthly dues for
hospital benefits from their wages.

While they regarded her professionally and personally in a humorous
light and made her more or less the target of coarse jokes, as is any
woman who leaves the beaten track, yet the general feeling toward her
was one of friendliness.

They laughed at her swaggering stride, her masculine dress, the
vernacular which was their own speech, but there was quickly established
between them and her a good-humored familiarity which was greatly to her
liking. They become "Bill" and "Pat" and "Tony" to her and she was "Doc"
to them.

While her horses trotted briskly the length of the ditch and she was
returning smiling nods and flinging retorts that were not too delicate
over her shoulder, she began to feel herself a personage; she was filled
with a growing sense of importance and power.

There was everything to indicate that the contract would prove all that
she and Lamb had hoped for. The general health was exceptionally good
and she urged sanitary precautions upon the men to prevent long and
expensive fevers; as yet there was no dangerous rock-work entailing the
use of explosives to imperil the lives and