"Thunder!" She stamped her foot impatiently. "Who is it?" she scowled. "Billy Duncan. He's bleedin' bad, Doc." There was a note of entreaty in his voice. "All right," she answered shortly, "I'll be down." "Frien' of yours?" inquired Terriberry. "Friend? No. One of those damned hoboes on the Ditch. Looks like he might have taken some other night than this." "Don't blame you 'tall, Doc. I gotta get to work and fin' Merta. If you see Merta----" Mr. Terriberry suddenly realized that he was talking to himself. As Dr. Harpe made her way to the cloak-room she was conscious that it was well she was leaving. The lights were blurring rapidly, the dancers in the ballroom were unrecognizable and indistinct, she was sensible, too, of the increasing thickness of her tongue. Yet more than ever she wanted to laugh hysterically, to scream, to boast before them all of the things she had done and of those she meant to do. Yes, decidedly, it was time she was leaving, her saner self told her. She fumbled among the wraps in the cloak-room until she found her own, then, steadying herself by running her fingertips along the wall, she slipped from the hotel without being observed. "Made a good getaway that time," she muttered. Her lips felt stiff and dry and she moistened them frequently as she stumbled across the hummocks of sagebrush growing on the vacant lots between the hospital and the hotel. She fell, and cursed aloud as she felt the sting of cacti spines in her palm. She sat where she fell and tried to extract them by the light of the moon. Then she arose and stumbled on. "God! I'm drunk--jus' plain drunk," she said thickly, and was glad that there would be no one but Nell Beecroft about. Nell was safe. She had long since attended to that. They shared too many secrets in common for Nell to squeal. Nell was not easily shocked. She laughed foolishly at the thought of Nell being shocked and wondered what could do it. Her contract with Symes called for a graduate nurse--Dr. Harpe snorted--a graduate nurse for hoboes! Nell was cheaper, and even if her reputation was more than doubtful she was big and husky--and they understood each other. The right woman in the right place, and with Lamb helped form a trio that stood for harmony and self-protection. "Graduate nurse for hoboes!" She muttered it scornfully again. "Not on your tintype!" She fell against the kitchen door and it opened with her weight. "Hullo, Nell!" She blinked foolishly in the glare of the light. The woman looked at her in silence. "Hullo, I say!" The cloak slipped from her bare shoulders and she lunged toward a chair. The flush on her face had faded and her color was ghastly, a grayish white, the pallor of an anaemic; the many short hairs on her forehead and temples hung straight in her eyes, the filmy flounce of her gown was torn and trailing, while a scraggly bunch of Russian thistle clung to the chiffon ruffles of her silk drop-skirt.