The Lady Doc   By: Caroline Lockhart (1870-1962)

by

CAROLINE LOCKHART

Author of "The Man from Bitter Roots," "The Fighting Shepherdess"

Frontispiece by Gayle Hoskins

[Illustration: "No, Essie Tisdale, I can't just see you in any such setting as that"]

A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York Published by arrangement with J. B. Lippincott Company

Copyright, 1912, by J. B. Lippincott Company

Published September, 1912

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. The "Canuck" That Saved Flour Gold 9 II. The Humor of the Fate Lachesis 17 III. A Mésalliance 31 IV. "The Ground Floor" 43 V. Another Case in Surgery 56 VI. "The Church Racket" 70 VII. The Sheep From the Goats 77 VIII. "The Chance of a Lifetime" 90 IX. The Ways of Polite Society 99 X. Essie Tisdale's Enforced Abnegation 110 XI. The Opening Wedge 120 XII. Their First Clash 127 XIII. Essie Tisdale's Colors 139 XIV. "The Ethics of the Profession" 147 XV. Symes's Authority 165 XVI. The Top Wave 172 XVII. The Possible Investor 179 XVIII. "Her Supreme Moment" 188 XIX. "Down And Out" 213 XX. An Unfortunate Affair 234 XXI. Turning a Corner 248 XXII. Crowheart's First Murder Mystery 259 XXIII. Symes Meets the Homeseekers 271 XXIV. The Dago Duke And Dan Treu Exchange Confidences 280 XXV. Crowheart Demands Justice 288 XXVI. Latin Methods 294 XXVII. Essie Tisdale's Moment 303 XXVIII. The Sweetest Thing in the World 312 XXIX. "The Bitter End" 325 XXX. "Thicker Than Water" 332

THE LADY DOC

I

THE "CANUCK" THAT SAVED FLOUR GOLD

"A fellow must have something against himself he certainly must to live down here year in and year out and never do a lick of work on a trail like this, that he's usin' constant. Gettin' off half a dozen times to lift the front end of your horse around a point, and then the back end there's nothin' to it!"

Grumbling to himself and talking whimsically to the three horses stringing behind him, Dick Kincaid picked his way down the zigzag, sidling trail which led from the saddleback between two peaks of the Bitter Root Mountains into the valley which still lay far below him.

"Quit your crowdin', can't you, Baldy!" He laid a restraining hand upon the white nose of the horse following close at his heels. "Want to jam me off this ledge and send me rollin' two thousand feet down onto their roof? Good as I've been to you, too!"

He stopped and peered over the edge of the precipice along which the faint trail ran.

"Looks like smoke." He nodded in satisfaction. "Yes, 'tis smoke. Long past dinner time, but then these squaws go to cookin' whenever they happen to think about it. Lord, but I'm hungry! Wish some good lookin' squaw would get took with me and follow me off, for I sure hates cookin' and housework."

Still talking to himself he resumed the descent, slipping and sliding and digging his heels hard to hold himself back.