le as she
walked.

Dr. Harpe returned to her room with a smirk of deep satisfaction upon
her face.

"I soaked the knife home _that_ time," she murmured, pinning on her
stiff-brimmed Stetson before the mirror, but, mingled with her
gratification was a slight feeling of uneasiness because she had gone
farther than she had intended in mentioning Van Lennop's letter and
boasting that it had been left for her.

The pair of horses which she and Lamb owned in common was at the stable
already harnessed for their semi-weekly trip to the camps along the
Ditch, but Dr. Harpe turned their heads in the opposite direction and by
noon had reached the sheep-camp of old Edouard Dubois.

She hitched her horses to the shearing-pen and opened the unlocked door
of the cabin. A pan of freshly-made biscuit and a table covered with
unwashed breakfast dishes told her that the cabin was being occupied, so
she reasoned that it was safer to wait until some one returned than to
search the hills for Dubois.

A barking sheep-dog told her of some one's approach, and in relief she
went out to meet him, for she was restless and impatient of any delay.
But instead of the lumbering old French Canadian she saw the Dago Duke
coming leisurely from a near-by coulee, picturesque in the unpicturesque
garb of a sheep-herder.

If there was no welcoming smile upon her face the Dago Duke was the last
person to be embarrassed by the omission.

"Ah, 'Angels unawares' and so forth." The Dago Duke swept his hat from
his head in a low bow. "A rare pleasure, Doctor, to return and find a
lady----"

She flushed at the mocking emphasis.

"Cut that out; any fool can be sarcastic."

"You surprise and pain me. If it is sarcasm to refer to you as a
lady----?"

"Where's Dubois?"

He waved his hand toward the coulee and she walked away.

The Dago Duke looked after her with an expression of amused speculation
in his handsome eyes. What deviltry was she up to now?

"Addio, mia bella Napoli," he whistled. "Addio! addio!" What difference
did it make so long as she confined her activities to Dubois?--since he
had no more liking for one than the other.

The Dago Duke had applied to Dubois for work as a sheep-herder and got
it.

After the memorable midnight session with pink lizards and the Gila
monster, the Dago Duke applied for work as a sheep-herder and got it,
chiefly because of his indifference to the question of wages.

"I want to get away from the gilded p