below. The women, splendid creatures in
gowns whose cost ran into hundreds of dollars, and bejeweled almost at
any price. Beautiful faces, many of them already displaying the
ravages of a life that moved at the swiftest gait. Others again
bloated and aging long before the years asserted their claims, and
still others, fresh with all the beauty of extreme youth and a life
only at the beginning of the downward course.

The men, too, were no less interesting to the student of psychology.
Here was every type from the illiterate human mechanism whose muscles
dominated his whole process of life, to the cultured son of
civilization who had never known before the meaning of life beyond the
portals of the temples of refinement. Here they were all on the same
highway of pleasure. Here they were all full to the brim of a
wonderful joy of life. Care was for the daylight, when the secrets of
their bank roll would be revealed, and the draft on the exchequer of
health would have to be met.

There was displayed no element of the soil from which these people drew
their wealth, except for the talk. They had long since risen from the
moleskin and top-boot stage in Leaping Horse. The Elysian Fields
demanded outward signs of respectability in the habiliments of its
customers, and the garish display of the women was there to enforce it.
Broadcloth alone was the mode, and conformity with this rule drew forth
many delights for the observing eye.

But the people thus disguised remained the same. Every type was
gathered, from the sound, reasonable accumulator of wealth to the
"hold-up," the gambler, the fugitive from the law. It was said of
Leaping Horse that it only required the "dust" to buy any crime known
to the penal code. And here, here at the Elysian Fields, on any night
in the week, could be found the man or woman to perpetrate it at a
moment's notice.

Dr. Bill laughed without mirth.

"Gee, it leaves the Bell River outfit saints beside them," he said.

Kars' contemplative eyes were following the movements of a handsome
blond woman with red-gold hair, which was aglitter with a half circle
band of jewels supporting an aigrette, which must have cost five
thousand dollars. She was obviously young, extremely young. To his
mind she could not have been more than twenty--if that. Her eyes were
deep blue, with unusually large pupils. Her lips were ripe with a
freshness which owed nothing to any salve. Her nose was almost