You've stayed too long already. You're gettin' the San Pasqual sperrit,
Doc. You ain't got no sympathy for a stranger."

"Well, you don't expect me to put up twenty-five a week and railroad
fare--"

"Never mind worryin' about what you've got to put up with, Doc. If you
know all the things I put up with--thanks, Doc. Hurry back, and don't
forget to 'phone for that nurse."

"Ain't it marvelous how a small camp always narrers the point o' view?"
the gambler observed when the doctor had gone. "Always thinkin' o'
themselves an' money, A man in my business, Miss Donna, soon learns
that mighty few men--an' women, too--will stand the acid. That young
feller inside (he jerked a fat thumb over his shoulder) will stand it.
I know. I've applied the acid. An' you'll stand the acid, too," he
added--"when Mrs. Pennycook hears you kissed Bob McGraw. Ouch! That
woman's tongue drips corrosive sublimate."

Donna blushed furiously.

"You--you--won't tell, will you, Mr. Hennage?"

"Of course not. But that chuckleheaded roughneck O'Rourke will. Why did
you kiss him? I ain't one o' the presumin' kind, but I'd like to know,
Miss Donna."

"I kissed him"--Donna commenced to cry and hid her burning face in her
hands. "I kissed him because--because--I thought he was dying--and he
was the first man--that looked at--me so different. And he was so