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 impart.  “The cerebrum penetrated by a second. . . .”

What other technical elucidation might have followed was lost in a thunderous crashing of the piano keys as Florence Engle strove to drown the man’s utterance and succeeded so well that for an instant he sat gaping at her.

“I can’t stand that man!” Florence said sharply to Norton, and though the words did not travel across the room, Virginia was surprised that even an individual so completely armored as Caleb Patten could fail to grasp the girl’s meaning.

When Florence had pounded her way through a noisy bit of “jazz,” Caleb Patten, with one of his host’s cigars lighted, was leaning a little forward in his chair, alert to seize the first opportunity of snatching conversation by the throat.

“Kid Rickard admits killing Bisbee,” he said to Norton.  “What are you going to do about it?  The first thing I heard when I got in from a professional call a little while ago was that Rickard was swaggering around town, saying that you wouldn’t gather him in because you were afraid to.”

The sheriff’s face remained unmoved, though the others looked curiously to him and back to Patten, who was easy and complacent and vaguely irritating.

“I imagine you haven’t seen Jim Galloway since you got in, have you?” Norton returned quietly.

“No,” said Patten.  “Why?  What has Galloway got to do with it?”