even as she rose, her instinct told her that she belonged to another.

"I-I t'ank you very moch," she stammered. "You awful kind to ask me, but I t'ink I better not go."

George's eyes followed Etta's, to where Mark was whittling a stick with elaborate indifference. The nerve of Giuseppe Salvatori to go off with a girl when he was being trained up for a member of the gang! Not that Mark wanted him at that moment, but the nerve of him to go without asking! He was roused from his gloomy meditations by George's derisive shout.

"She 's going with me," fat George declared. "I got bunches o' money, an' I 'm takin' her."

"Aw, quit yer kiddin'!" Mark responded, shoving him aside. "I ain't got no time to fool wit' you. Ain't I chased you all de way home last week? W'at yer mean by buttin' in here?"

It was only too true. Chased him Mark had, and Finsen was aware that worse things awaited him if he interfered with the Avenue A leader. Haughtily he drew

aside.

"I ain't buttin' in," he declared. "Could n't hire me to go to yer old show,

"You waitin' for him! Say, that 's a Say, that's a hot one! Why, he ain't got as much cash as would let you look at the outside of the tent. You come along o' me, an' I'll show you how we do things in my block." Abruptly Mark strode toward the couple. Well he knew that he carried in a corner of his ragged lining only so many pennies as would see him through the week with the barest economy; but he 'd show that fat Finsen if he could laugh at him. He 'd show him.

"Here, you," he called roughly to Etta, who stood patiently waiting for him. "What you standin' dere for? Don't you see they 're 'most o' de way already? Get a move on, can't yer?"

anyway. I don't see no fun racin' round when it 's so blazin' hot."

"Think it's hot, do you?" Mark jeered, swaggering off. "Wait till yer die."

And Giuseppe Salvatori, who had come. back with Florabel to join the others, clapped his hands delightedly crying:

"Oh, Mark, you are all time so fonny!" And Etta, unaware of the jest, worshiped anew.

They did the sights, and Mark spent freely, like the "good sport" he aspired to be. He bullied Giuseppe, lorded it over Etta, showed off before the others, and altogether conducted himself as befitted a person of his standing, and half an hour before train-time they returned to the

house flushed and weary, excited and wonderfully happy. Etta especially was radiant, for she had at last found some one to whom she could attach herself, and the other girls had taken her into their fellowship as one of themselves.

It was a sunburned, disheveled, delighted crowd that boarded the train for New York and alternately dozed and talked over the day's doings as the landscape melted into the dusk. At the farther end of the car the boys chattered amiably, Paul drawing cows and trees and enormous waves on the floor with a lump of chalk, Abraham holding forth on high finance, and Giuseppe clasping his knees with his thin, brown hands, his eager face aglow, his ready smile flashing out at each speaker in turn.

Florabel turned from the contemplation of her little squire with a happy sigh as she snuggled up to Miss Devons.

"Ain't we had the grand time!" she murmured sleepily; and Louisa May agreed.

"Swell, you bet! I mean elergant, Miss Devons, ma'am. I ain't forgot how you told us not to say swell. But I'm that sleepy I just got to talk natural."

"Would n't 'lovely' or 'beautiful' be as natural as swell or elegant?" asked Miss Devons with a smile.

Louisa May pondered.

"They don't sound just right, ma'am, but mebbe they 'll come so. Mommer she says as how we should always keep on hopin' even when things don't seem likely."

Miss Devons privately thought that if Louisa May's mother would use a little more effort instead of so much hope, things might be better for the family; but she kept her opinion to herself as Marie's voice rose from across the aisle.

"You think red bows or light blue the most stylish for the hair, Louisa May?" The conversation safely started, Miss Devons slipped back a few seats to where Etta was sitting by herself, smiling happily out of the window. She sat down by the child and, putting an arm around her, she inquired:

"Have you had a happy day, dear?" "Jawohl," sighed Etta, blissfully. "So, so happy!"

"And you 're going to try to like New York a little better, aren't you, honey?"

"I likes it goot," said Etta, placidly. "Say, Teacher, you know how Mark lives? No mudder at all, no fader at all-choost oder boys vat sells papers. Dot vas not von nice vay to live. And, say, you see how he puts him on mit clothes? Dey vas all dirty, und von big hole in his shirt. Dot vas not von nice t'ing to put So I vashes und I mends for Mark, und I likes America goot."

on.

HARRY WHITE paused, as he did

regularly four times a day on his way from bunk-house to mine and from mine to bunk-house, to look up at the company hospital on its prickly, little hill. It was a squat, adobe structure, four-square, roofed with shimmering galvanized iron. Harry hated it for the smug, self-satisfied expression with which it looked down on the huddled roofs of the little miningcamp, and for the inhuman indifference with which it seemed to watch the pitiful struggles of a moribund road that fought its choked and despairing way through the tangle of ocatilla and cactus all across the wide, brown desert toward the distant wall of pale-pink mountains. He hated it most for the hateful letters of the doctor's name on the door.

Four times a day Harry saw that name and thought of poor Eugenio; four times a day he renewed his mental vow to "get Jones." Eugenio, of course, was only a "Greaser," but still human and a devoted parent. He was, besides, a capable workman, entitled to consideration; and even though, as the doctor afterward claimed, the baby must have died in any case, it was not right to delay to eat two pieces of pie, to drink a cup of coffee, and to smoke a cigarette before answering the summons of a distracted father. A doctor should be a doctor even in Mexico.

Harry's eyes were drawn away from the hateful name by a wretched, moth-eaten little pony that now came stumbling and sliding down the stony path from the hospital. The rider, a barefooted, broadhatted Indian boy, was fully as unhappy as his sorry steed, to judge by the large tears that coursed down his firm, brown cheeks. With one hand he continually rubbed his streaming eyes, and in the other, at arm's length, he held a small bottle.

"What is the trouble, joven?" asked Harry, kindly.

The boy slid from his horse and took off his hat. "It is, Señor, that I fear this will not serve." He held the bottle out to Harry. 'Besides, if I return without the medico, the patron will doubtless beat me." He sobbed with abandon. "It is Doña Julia who is sick. Now she must die." Harry frowned. "And why will not the doctor go with you?"

"Who knows?" The boy shrugged. "He does not desire to go."

"Wait thou here for me," Harry commanded, and strode away up the hill.

The hot little hospital waiting-room held only emptiness perfumed with iodoform; the dispensary, too, was empty. Harry pushed open a door that stood ajar on the patio and stood transfixed before what met his eyes—a picture of indolent bliss framed in flowers.

The patio was a cool, well-watered spot, smelling of wet pavement, mignonette, and heliotrope. There in the coolest corner lounged in collarless, suspendered comfort Señor Don Guillermo Jones,-plain Bill Jones back in "Missoura,”—the company doctor of the Madre de Dios Gold Mining Company, Limited. His chair was tipped back against the whitewashed wall at exactly the most reposeful angle, and his large, flat feet rested agreeably on the rim of a tub in which grew a tall oleander. Vacuous content sat upon his undistinguished features. It was evident that he was not suffering from the absence of his señora so much as were the uncared-for geraniums, already beginning to droop in their long row of kerosene-tin pots, or as was the hungry bird, hopping frantically about in its wire cage. He reclined on his shoulder-blades and his pudgy, though

oddly capable, hands lay placidly folded in the hollow of his chest.

"Well," Harry exclaimed indignantly, "would n't that make you burst right out crying!"

Señor Jones heard. He brought the front legs of his chair to the ground with a thud that jarred his pendulous cheeks; he creaked with haste as he rose.

"I did n't know you were in there," he excused himself, sheepishly. "Come into my office, Mr. White."

"What's this a boy outside tells me of your refusal to go to see a dying woman? Is n't there a mistake?"

"No; no mistake. He wanted me to ride over to La Soledad on the Dolores River. I can't go as far away as that; there might be an accident in the mine while I was away. My duty is to be right here, and if I were to go riding around the country prescribing for every miserable Greaser who thinks himself sick, I should never be here at all."

"Is that all you have to say?"

Señor Jones looked at the white-hot patch of sunlight that lay in one corner of the court. "Yes," he said.

Harry turned without another word and stamped out by the way he had come. "Follow me," he called to the Indian boy, who was standing patiently on the very spot where he had been left.

The manager of the Madre de Dios Gold Mining Company was in his office. He listened to Harry's story without signs of surprise; it is not improbable that the thing had happened before.

"Why, no," he said; "I do not object to letting Jones go over to Soledad for a really serious case. But you understand I cannot order him to go; outside work is not in his contract with us. And I am afraid you may find it hard to persuade him to make the trip on a hot day like this."

"Oh, I'll persuade him fast enough," remarked Harry. "I have a little account to settle with Jones, and I guess this is as good a time as any. Will you give me a note authorizing him to go-and an order on the stable for the buggy, please."

"Very well," laughed the manager. "And good luck to you! Jones will be all right if you manage to get him there."

The peon, standing behind Harry, with his hat in his hand, did not understand

what was happening, but murmured, "Muchisimas gracias," on general principles.

When Harry, with the boy still close at his heels, got back to the hospital, Don Guillermo was once more established in his favorite corner. This time he did not move when he saw his visitors. He took the manager's note, read it, folded it carefully, and tore it into small pieces. Then, very deliberately, he spat on the pavement. Then he looked up.

Suddenly his muscles contracted as though with a violent electric shock. His hands grasped the arms of his chair; his face turned a livid color most unpleasant to see; his mouth hung open idiotically. Probably he had never before looked directly up the wicked, blue barrel of a businesslike revolver.

"You have changed your mind about that little trip over to La Soledad, I think, Doctor," said Harry in unctuous tones. "I believe you would just enjoy it."

"Put up your gun, man!" the doctor fairly screeched. "I will come fast enough."

"You bet you will," Harry snarled between clenched teeth, far too angry to see the absurdity of the situation. “Do you remember how you let poor Eugenio's baby die? I promised myself then that I would see to it that you went the next time you were sent for in a hurry, if only to see a sick dog."

Thanks rather to force of habit than to reason, the doctor gathered up his indispensable little black bag as they passed through the office. A buggy stood before the door, and, prodded from behind with the cold muzzle of the revolver, the agitated disciple of Esculapius climbed hastily in, just as he was, without coat or hat or necktie, and with bedroom slippers on his bare feet.

The road was long and hot. Harry felt a fiendish glee in the choking dust. that filled his eyes and throat. He spared his companion none of the jolts, but took the rough places at a gallop; the boy on his tired pony had much ado to keep ahead.

As they plunged into a dry arroyo, a long-legged jack-rabbit loped away; once a rattlesnake lifted its wicked head from behind a stone; a bird peered curiously out of its little, round window near the top of

a giant cactus: there was no other sign of life in all the miles.

It was afternoon when they reached La Soledad, a long, low adobe house under a flat roof that bristled with dry, yellow grasses, seeming a part of the hill against which it leaned. Outside there was nothing stirring except a half-naked child perched among the branches of a ragged sycamore, but from within came a low murmur of prayer or lamentation.

As they entered the porch, an old goat that had been browsing deliciously among the pots of the cooking-corner made off with many indignant bleats.

The woman lay dying in a large, cavelike room, and about her were gathered all the retainers of Soledad, kneeling by the bed or squatting, very still, in the cor

ners.

Many long candles stuck into empty bottles glimmered at the woman's head and feet, and over her was spread a wonderful lace coverlet that swept the uneven dirt floor with its heavy fringes. The air of the place was damp and cool and stale, like a breath of the grave itself.

The room was furnished with an old tin trunk, a broken table, and a sewing-machine. From rafters that sagged under the weight of the thick gravel roof hung long festoons of dried chiles and yellow ears of corn; against the mud wall was fastened, with pitiful piety a shiny, brightcolored print representing an impossibly blond, elaborately curled Christ.

Harry followed the doctor to the door, determined to use further "persuasion," if necessary. This proved to be a needless precaution, for at sight of the sick woman Don Guillermo became a different man. Whatever else he might be, Bill Jones was a real doctor-a doctor by vocation, born with the instinct to cure, just as others are born with a mental twist that makes of them inevitably policemen, painters, or professional bicycle-riders. He cleared the room in short order of women and dogs, of children and chickens; he put out all the tall candles except such as were needed for his work; he unpacked his little black bag, and set out methodically, unemotionally, confidently, the horrible tools of his trade. He hummed a foolish tune. He might have been a carpenter preparing to mend the table.

The doctor called to Harry: "Here,

you, boy, I shall need a helper in this job, and I guess it is up to you. Boil these things for me in the cleanest pot you can find. And be quick about it; we have no time to lose, for she is almost gone." He gave Harry a handful of cruel, shiny bits of steel, the look and feel of which made the young man's flesh creep.

Outside in the porch a few embers still. glowed on the hearth. Harry scoured a pot with sand, filled it with water, and set it over the coals. A little girl with great, round, frightened eyes helped him fan the blaze. After a long time the water boiled.

Harry went back into the room carrying the sterilized instruments. The place was full of the sickening sweetness of chloroform, and the woman lay motionless on her bed.

What followed was for Harry a terrible ordeal. He did blindly what he was told; held things, handed things, heated things, washed things. things, washed things. His knees shook under him, and once he might have fainted without the doctor's "Steady, boy!" boy!" He held out, though, till the end.

The doctor worked with a skill that even to Harry's ignorance seemed marvelous; and all the while he hummed his vulgar, irritating little tune. He was happy, as a good workman is happy in his work. Harry looked at him out of bloodshot eyes, and was filled with wonder.

"It 's all over," said the doctor at last. "You had better go down to the river and wash up."

So, after all, she was dead! Harry stifled a sob, and rushed out into the open air. He plunged through the kneeling group before the door, and down the thorny slope to the river, where he was miserably sick.

A deep pool lay at the foot of a huge, vermilion rock. Harry stripped and plunged in. The shock of the cool water revived him so much that he was soon able to walk back to the house, a little shaky still and very much ashamed of his weakness.

In the porch an old Mexican fell upon him and kissed him violently on both cheeks. In the door stood Don Guillermo, wiping his instruments and laughing.

"What," gasped the boy, "did n't she die?"

"Not this time, my son," answered the doctor. "She came through in fine shape.