se.

"No; I've just come; I haven't got a stock yet and there's no drug store
in this jay town. It's on the way but that doesn't help us now. We ought
to have plaster of Paris but we haven't. Hurry up--get a move on before
it swells any more."

The man did as he was bid, with a look of doubt and uncertainty upon his
face.

He returned almost immediately with strips torn from a case of fruit.

"That's good." Dr. Harpe laid them on the bunk with the bandages. She
added shortly: "She's going to howl."

"Can't you give her anything?"

"No; I can't give ether by myself. I'm not going to take a chance like
that. If she'd die on my hands it'd queer me here on the jump. 'Twon't
kill her. She'll probably faint and then it'll be easy. When the
muscles relax, hold on to her leg above her knee while I pull."

The man's face turned a ghastly hue as the child screamed and fainted
away, nor did the color return as he watched the woman's clumsy fingers,
the bungling movements which, unlettered as he was, told him of her
inexperience--bungling movements which had not even compensating
feminine gentleness.

When the child had revived and Dr. Harpe had finished, the man went
outside and leaned against the wheel.

"Are you sure it'll be straight?"

She saw her own misgivings reflected in his face, and it exasperated
her.

"What a fool question. Do you think I don't know my business?"

He did not answer, and she turned away.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Rosie." He was at her side at once.

She lifted her clear eyes to his face.

"I don't like that woman."

"Like her!" he answered slowly. "Like her! Her heart is as black as my
hat."

To herself Dr. Harpe was saying:

"Moses! I had to start in on somebody."

It was with relief that she looked through her office window after
supper and saw that the wagon was gone from the vacant lot.

"Good riddance!" she muttered. "I wouldn't have that black-eyed devil
hanging around this town for money. He's onery enought to do me
mischief. I wonder who he was? He might be anything or anybody; a dago
duke or a hold-up--or both. Anyway, he's gone, and if I never see him
again it'll be soon enough."

She sat down in her office chair and rested her heels on the window sill
while her cigarette burned to ashes between her listless fingers. For a
time she watched the white light of the June moon grow on the line of
dimpled foothills, the myriad odors of spring were in the air and the
balmy west