ose you are surprised to see me," Clarke said, moving coolly
forward and sitting down by the fire.

"We are," Harding answered briefly.

Benson's face wore a curious, strained expression, but he did not speak.

"Well," Clarke laughed, as he filled his pipe, "I dare say I made a
rather dramatic entrance, falling upon you, so to speak, out of the
dark."

"I've a suspicion that you enjoy that kind of thing," Harding said.
"You're a man with the dramatic feeling; guess you find it useful now
and then."

Clarke's eyes twinkled, but it was not with wholesome humor. His eyes
were keen, but he looked old and forbidding as he sat with the smoke
blowing about him and the ruddy firelight on his face.

"There's some truth in your remark, and I take it as a compliment; but
my arrival's easily explained. I saw your fire in the distance and
curiosity brought me along."

"What are you doing up here?"

"Going on a visit to my friends, the Stonies. Though it's a long way,
I look them up now and then."

"From what I've heard of them, they don't seem a very attractive lot,"
Blake interposed. "But we haven't offered you any supper. Benson, you
might put on the frying-pan."

"No, thanks," said Clarke. "I'm camped with two half-breeds a little
way back. The Stonies, as you remark, are not a polished set; but
we're on pretty good terms, and it's their primitiveness that makes
them interesting. You can learn things civilized men don't know much
about from these people."

"In my opinion, it's knowledge that's not worth much to a white man,"
Harding remarked contemptuously. "Guess you mean the secrets of their
medicine-men? What isn't gross superstition is trickery."

"There you are wrong. They have some tricks, rather clever ones,
though that's not unusual with the professors of a more advanced
occultism; but living, as they do, in direct contact with nature in her
most savage mood, they have found clues to things that we regard as
mysteries. Anyway, they have discovered a few effective remedies that
aren't generally known yet to medical science."

He spoke with some warmth, and had the look of a genuine enthusiast;
but Harding laughed.

"Medical science hasn't much to say in favor of hoodoo practises, so
far as I know. But I understand you are a doctor?"

"I was pretty well known in London."

"Then," Harding asked bluntly, "what brought you to Sweetwater?"

"If you haven't heard, I may as well tell you, becaus