miles
of desert, to remember him and to dislike him. He was the man whom
Galloway and the stage-driver had called "Doc," the sole representative
of the medical fraternity in San Juan until her coming. She disliked
him first vaguely and with purely feminine instinct; secondly because
of an air which he never laid aside of a serene consciousness of
self-superiority. He had established himself in what he was pleased to
consider a community of nobodies, his inferiors intellectually and
culturally. He was of that type of man-animal that lends itself to
fairly accurate cataloguing at the end of the first five minutes'
acquaintance. The most striking of the physical attributes about his
person as he entered were his little mustache and neatly trimmed beard
and the diamond stick-pin in his tie. Remove these articles and it
would have been difficult to distinguish him from countless thousands
of other inefficient and opinionated individuals.

Virginia noted that both Mr. and Mrs. Engle shook hands with him if not
very cordially at least with good-humored toleration; that Florence
treated him to a stiff little nod; that Roderick Norton from across the
room greeted him coolly.

"Dr. Patten," Engle was saying, "this is our cousin, Virginia Page."

Dr. Patten acknowledged the introduction and sat down, turning to ask
"how Florrie was today?" Virginia smiled, sensing a rebuke to herself
in his manner; to-day on the stage she had made it obvious even to him
that if she must speak with a stranger she would vastly prefer the talk
of the stage-driver than that of Dr. Caleb Patten. When Florence,
replying briefly, turned to the piano Patten addressed Norton.

"What was our good sheriff doing to-day?" he asked banteringly, as
though the subject he chose were the most apt one imaginable for jest.
"Another man killed in broad daylight and no one to answer for it! Why
don't you go get 'em, Roddy?"

Norton stared at him steadily and finally said soberly:

"When a disease has fastened itself upon the body of a community it
takes time to work a cure, Dr. Patten."

"But not much time to let the life out of a man like the chap from Las
Palmas! Why, the man who did the shooting couldn't have done a nicer
job if he'd been a surgeon. One bullet square through the carotid
artery . . . That leads from the heart to the head," he explained as
though his listeners were children athirst for knowledge which he and
none other could impar