A worn phonograph screeching the popular songs of a
past decade holds the rapt attention of such. It reminds them of that
world they left long ago, a world which in the perspective of waning
years looks all song and laughter, good company, good clothes, good
food, and green things everywhere.

Therefore it is little wonder that this voice of marvellous sweetness
and power rising unexpectedly out of the moonlit night should lay an
awed hush upon the music-starved town. To some it brought a flood of
memories and lumps in aching throats while many a weather-beaten face
was lifted from mediocrity by a momentary exultation that was of the
soul.

That a human voice unaided by a visible personality could throw such a
spell upon the listeners seems rather a tax upon credulity; but the
singer himself appeared to have no misgivings. His face wore a look of
smiling, mocking confidence as he stood with one hand on his hip, the
other grasping a bar of the iron grating which covered the single window
of Crowheart's calaboose, pouring forth the golden notes with an
occasional imperious toss of his head and a flash of his black eyes
which made him look like a royal prisoner.

When the last note had died away, Dr. Harpe breathed an ejaculation.

"The Dago Duke!"

"He sings like an angel," said "Slivers," a barkeep.

"And fights like a devil," replied Dan Treu, the deputy-sheriff. "He
turned a knife in Tinhorn's shoulder."

VI

"THE CHURCH RACKET"

Dr. Harpe went downstairs the next morning with her straight upper lip
stretched in the set smile with which she met a crisis. "Hank"
Terriberry passed through the hall as she descended the stairs and she
watched him breathlessly.

"Mornin', Doc." He nodded in friendly nonchalance and her heart leaped
in relief.

He knew nothing of the quarrel!

"Wait a minute, Mr. Terriberry," she called, and he stopped. "Say, what
church do you belong to? What are you?"

Mr. Terriberry suffered from pyorrhea, and the row of upper teeth which
he now displayed in a genial grin looked like a garden-rake, due to his
shrinking gums.

"I'm a Presbyterian, Doc, but I don't work at it. Why?"

"Let's get together and build a church. I'll go around with a
subscription paper myself and raise the money. I feel lost without a
church, I honestly do. It's downright heathenish."

"That's so," Mr. Terriberry agreed heartily, "there's something damned
respectable about a church. It makes a good i