not long from Ohio.

"It looks to me like somebody had made a track in his stockin' feet."

The deputy was born near the Rosebud Agency.

"Does it?" he added. "I guess we won't walk around any more until
morning."

The track was a moccasin print to him.

It was the coroner who said to Dan Treu in an undertone as they sat by
the fire waiting for the daylight--

"Did you ever see a woman act like Doc? By Gosh! did you ever see
anybody act like Doc? She's enjoyin' this--upon my soul she is! She
makes me think of a half-starved hunting dog that's pulled somethin'
down and has got a taste of blood."

The deputy nodded with an odd smile.

The Dago Duke said nothing. But he seemed vastly interested in watching
Dr. Harpe. He observed her every movement, her every expression, with a
purposeful look upon his face which was new to it.

They found the gun in the morning, caught in a giant sagebrush where it
hung concealed until accidentally jarred loose by no less a person than
Mr. Percy Parrott, who had arrived early to give his unsolicited aid to
the deputy-sheriff.

The Colt's automatic was easily identified as Dubois's gun, and two
shells were missing.

"A pretty rough piece of work," commented Dr. Harpe as she looked at the
empty chambers.

"As raw as they make it," agreed the Dago Duke for once.

"Don't run away, Dago," said the sheriff, "I may want you."

"Run?--when I go I'll fly."

All the town turned out to look when Dan Treu drove into town with the
girl sitting bolt upright and very white upon the seat beside him.

They stopped at the Terriberry House and her old room was assigned to
her, but all the gaping crowd considered her a prisoner.

XXIII

SYMES MEETS THE HOMESEEKERS

Andy P. Symes awoke from a night of troubled dreams with the impression
still strong upon him that he was the exact centre of a typhoon in the
China Seas. He realized gradually that the house was alternately
shivering and rocking, that the shade of the slightly lowered window was
flapping furiously, that his nose and throat were raw from the tiny
particles of dust which covered the counterpane and furniture, that
pebbles were striking the window-panes like the bombardment of a gatling
gun. There was a wailing and shrieking from the wires which anchored his
kitchen flue, a rattling and banging outside which conveyed the
knowledge that the sheet-iron roof on his coal-house was loose, while a
clatter from the street to