one of the lady doc's
practical jokes--it was sufficiently indelicate, he told himself. At any
rate he would soon see Dubois returning crestfallen from his courting
expedition, and the sight, he felt, was one he should relish.

"I'll reserve my congratulations until you come," said the Dago Duke as
he picked up his sheep-herder's staff and returned to his band of sheep.

"You will have ze opportunity, my frien'," grinned Dubois confidently.

Dr. Harpe had advised--

"Give her a night to cry her eyes out. Twenty-four hours will put a
crimp in her courage. Let the fact that she's jilted soak in. Give her
time to realize what she's up against in Crowheart."

And the woman had been right in her reasoning, for a night of tears and
grief, of shame and humiliation left Essie Tisdale with weakened
courage, mentally and physically spent.

Back of everything, above all else loomed in black and gigantic
proportions the fact that Van Lennop had gone away forever without a
word to her, that he even had thought less of her when it came to
leaving than of the woman whom he had seemed to avoid.

In the long hours of the night her tired brain constantly recalled the
things which he had said that had made her glow with happiness at the
time, but which she knew now were only the pleasant, idle words of the
people who came from the world east of the big hills. Dr. Harpe was
right when she had told her that in her ignorance of the world and its
men she had misunderstood the kindness Van Lennop would have shown to
any person in her position.

"But he didn't show it to her--he didn't show it to anyone else but me!"
she would whisper in a fierce joy, which was short-lived, for,
instantly, the crushing remembrance of his leave-taking confronted her.

Her face burned in the darkness when she remembered that Dr. Harpe had
taunted her with having displayed her love to all the town. She no
longer made any attempt to conceal it from herself, the sure knowledge
had come with Van Lennop's departure, and she whispered it aloud in the
darkness in glorious defiance, but the mood as quickly passed and her
face flamed scarlet at the thought that she had unwittingly showed her
precious secret to the unfriendly and curious.

She crept from bed and sat on the floor, with her folded arms upon the
window-sill, finding the night air good upon her hot face. She felt
weak, the weakness of black despair, for it seemed to her that her faith
in human natu