or a dollar limit game."

There was no comfort, therefore, in Craney's visit. Willett took
another cool bath, dressed about two, and being shown the path Case
generally followed, sauntered away, quite as though he had nothing on
his mind, and was presently lost beyond that same willowy screen. He at
that time, at least, was not thinking of 'Tonio and the lost trail.

At five the general, with Strong and Bonner, could be made out four
miles away, riding back from the peak. "I'll go a moment and inquire
for Mr. Harris," said Mrs. Archer, "and ask the doctor when _we_ may
visit him." So, leaving Lilian with Mrs. Stannard, and intending to be
gone but a few minutes, the gentle, anxious-hearted woman, sunshade in
hand, went forth from the shelter of the low veranda into the slanting,
unclouded rays, and presently tapped lightly at the doctor's open door.
There was no answer, yet from somewhere within came sound of masculine
voices. Entering the dark hall, she tapped again at the entrance to the
doctor's sitting-room, or den. A Navajo blanket hung like a _portiere_
across the open space, for door there was none, and, as no one came in
answer to her modest signal, she ventured to push the curtain a bit to
one side and peer within. The room was but dimly lighted, all windows
but one on the north side being heavily draped. The doctor's reclining
chair and reading table, the latter littered with books, pamphlets and
pipes, were visible through a reminiscent haze of not too fragrant
tobacco smoke, for the old predominated over the new. A rude sideboard
stood over against her, between the northward windows, and thereon was
stationed a demi-john of goodly proportions, with outlying pickets in
the way of glasses. Bentley himself, though one of the old school, was
an abstemious man, and therefore enabled to have at all times a supply
of reliable stimulant for such of his callers as were of opposite
faith. That some of that ilk had recently favored him was presumptively
evident, no more by the sideboard display than by the sound of voices
from an inner room, where two or three were uplifted in discussion, and
neither was the doctor's.

Now, Mrs. Archer much wished to see young Harris, to assure him of
their deep interest in his welfare, of their desire to be of service to
him, and their reason for not earlier intruding. Gentle and unselfish
though she was, there was distinct sense of chagrin that Mrs. Stannard,
or any woman, should h