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Title: The Lady Doc


Author: Caroline Lockhart



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THE LADY DOC

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.

"They say she sticks like beeswax, Dubois's squaw, never tries to run
off but stays right to home raisin' up a batch of young 'uns. You take
these Nez Perces and they're good Injuns as Injuns go. Smarter'n most,
fair lookers, and tolerable clean. Will you look at that infernal pack
slippin' again, and right here where there's no chance to fix it!

"Say, but I'd like to get my thumb in the eye of the fellow that made
these pack-saddles. Too narrow by four inches for any horse not just off
grass and rollin' fat. Won't fit any horse that packs in _these_ hills.
Doggone it, his back'll be as raw as a piece of beefsteak and if there's
anything in this world that I hate it's to pack a sore-backed horse.

"You can bet I wouldn't a made this trip for money if I wasn't so plumb
anxious to see how Dubois saves that flour gold. You take one of these
here 'canucks' and he's blamed near as good if not a better placer miner
than a Chink; more ingenious and just as savin'. Say, Baldy, will you
keep off my heels? If I have to tell you again about walkin' up my pant
leg I aim to break your head in. It's bad enough to come down a trail so
steep it wears your back hair off t'hout havin' your clothes tore off
you into the bargain."

And so, entertaining himself with his own conversation and scolding
amiably at his saddle and pack horses, the youthful prospector slid for
another hour down the mountain trail, though, as a rock would fall, the
log house of the French Canadian was not more than a thousand yards
below.

It was the middle of May and the deep snows of winter still lay in the
passes and upon the summit, but in the valley the violets made purple
blotches along the stream now foaming with the force of the water
trickling from the melting drifts above. The thorn bushes were white
with blossoms and the service-berry bushes were like fragrant banks of
snow. Accustomed as he was to the beauty of valleys and the grandeur of
peaks, something in the peaceful scene below him stirred the soul of
young Dick Kincaid, and he stopped to look before he made the last drop
into the valley.

"Ain't that a young paradise?" He breathed deep of the odorous air.
"Ain't it, now?"

The faint blue smoke rising straight among the white blossoms reminded
him again of his hunger, so, wiping the perspiration from his
snow-burned face, he started on again, but when he came to the ditch
which carried water from the stream through a hundred and fifty feet of
sluice-boxes he stopped and examined with eager interest the methods
used for saving fine gold, for, keen as was his hunger, the miner's
instinct within him was keener.

"Will you look at the lumber he's whip-sawed!" Astonishment was in his
voice! "Whip-sawin' lumber is the hardest work a man ever did. I'll bet
the squaw was on the other end of that saw; I never heard of Dubois
hiring help. Uh-huh, he uses the Carriboo riffles. Look at the work he's
been to--punchin' all those holes in that sheet-iron. And here's two
boxes of pole riffles, and a set of Hungarian riffles, not to mention
three distributin' boxes and a table. Say, he isn't takin' any chances
on losin' anything, is he? But it's all right--you gotta be careful with
this light gold and heavy sand. I'm liable to learn something down
here. Lord I'm hungry! Come on, Baldy!"

As he pulled his saddle horse in the direction of the smoke he noticed
that there were no footprints in the trail and a stillness which
impressed him as peculiar pervaded the place. There was something which
he missed--what was it? To be sure--dogs! There were no barking dogs to
greet him. It was curious, he thought, for these isolated families
always had plenty of dogs and no "breed" or "Injun" outfit ever kept
fewer than six. There were no shrill voices of children at play, no
sound of an axe or a saw or a hammer.

"Blamed funny," he muttered, yet he knew where there was smoke there
must be human beings.

He stopped short at some sound and listened attentively. A whimpering
minor wail reached him faintly. It was unlike any sound he ever had
heard, yet he knew it was a woman's voice. There was something in the
cadence which sent a chill over him. He dropped the bridle reins and
walked softly down the trail. Suddenly he halted and his lips parted in
a whispered ejaculation of astonishment and horror. He was young then,
Dick Kincaid, but the sight which met his eyes stayed with him distinct
in every detail, through all his adventurous life.

Two children, boys of eleven and thirteen or thereabouts, were roasting
a ground squirrel in the smouldering embers of what had been a cabin. A
dead baby lay on a ragged soogan near a partially dug grave.
Cross-legged on the ground beside it was a woman wailing unceasingly as
she rocked her gaunt and nearly naked body to and fro. The eagerness of
famished animals gleamed in the boys' eyes as they tore the half-cooked
squirrel in two, yet each offered his share to his mother, who seemed
not to see the proffered food.

"Just a little piece, mother," coaxed the elder, and he extended an
emaciated arm from which hung the rags of a tattered shirt sleeve.

Both children were dressed in the remnants of copper-riveted overalls
and their feet were bound in strips of canvas torn from a "tarp." Their
straight black hair hung over faces sunken and sallow and from the waist
up they were naked.

The boy held the food before her as long as he could endure it, then he
tore it with his teeth in the ferocity of starvation.

"Can you _beat_ it! Can you beat _that_!" The boys did not hear
Kincaid's shocked exclamation.

It was not until he cleared his throat and called in a friendly,
reassuring voice that they learned they were not alone. Then they jumped
in fright and scurried into a near-by thicket like two scared rabbits,
each holding tight his food. But Dick Kincaid's face was one to inspire
confidence, and as he approached they came forth timidly. Their first
fright gave place to delirious joy. The smaller threw his arms about
Kincaid's long legs and hugged them in an ecstasy of delight while the
elder clung to his hand as though afraid he might vanish. The woman
merely glanced at him with vacant eyes and went on wailing.

While he took cold biscuits and bacon from his pack they told him what
had happened--briefly, simply, without the smallest attempt to color the
story for his sympathy.

"We couldn't have held out much longer, m'sieu, we're so weak." The
elder boy was the spokesman.

"And the strawberries and sarvis-berries won't be ripe for a long time
yet. It wasn't so bad till the cabin burned. We could keep warm. But we
went off in the woods to see if we could kill something, and when we
came back the cabin was burned and the baby dead. Mother went crazy more
than a month ago, I guess it was. She wouldn't let us bury the baby till
yesterday, and when we started to dig we found we could only dig a
little at a time. We got tired so quick, and besides, we had to try and
keep a fire, for we have no more matches."

"I could dig longer nor you," chimed in the younger boy boastfully. The
other smiled wanly.

"I know it, Petie, but you had more to eat. You had two trout and a bird
more nor me."

"You have a gun, then? and fish-hooks?"

"Not now. We lost our hooks and shot our shells away long ago. We kill
things with rocks but it takes muscle, m'sieu, to throw hard enough. The
dog was starvin' and we killed and ate him. We couldn't try to get out
because mother wouldn't leave and she'd a been dead before we got back.
We couldn't have wallered through the snow anyhow. We'd never have made
it if we'd gone. There wasn't anything to do but to try and hang on till
spring; then we hoped somebody would come down like you have."

The boy did not cry as he told the story nor did his lip so much as
quiver at the recollection of their sufferings. He made no effort to
describe them, but the hollows in his cheeks and the dreadful thinness
of his arms and little body told it all more eloquently than words.

Kincaid noticed that he had not mentioned his father's name, so he asked
finally:

"Where's Dubois? Where's your father? I came to see him."

The childish face hardened instantly.

"I don't know. He cleaned up the sluice-boxes late last fall after the
first freeze. Mother helped him clean up. He got a lot of gold--the most
yet--and he took it with him and all the horses. He said he was going
out for grub but he never came back. Then the big snows came in the
mountains and we knew he couldn't get in. We ate our bacon up first,
then the flour give out, and the beans. The baby cried all the time
'cause 'twas hungry and Petie and me wore our shoes out huntin' through
the hills. It was awful, m'sieu."

Kincaid swallowed a lump in his throat.

"Do you think he'll come back?" the younger boy asked eagerly.

"He might have stayed outside longer than he intended and found he
couldn't get in for the snow, or he might have tried and froze in the
pass. It's deep there yet," was Kincaid's evasive reply.

"He'll never come back," said the older boy slowly, "and--he wasn't
froze in the pass."

It was still May when Dick Kincaid climbed out of the valley with the
whimpering squaw clinging to the horn of his saddle while the swarthy
little "breeds" trudged manfully in the trail close to his heels. The
violets still made purple blotches along the bank of the noisy stream,
the thorn trees and the service-berry bushes were still like fragrant
banks of snow, the grass in the valley was as green and the picture as
serenely beautiful as when first he had stopped to gaze upon it, but it
no longer looked like paradise to Dick Kincaid.

They stopped to rest and let the horses get their breath when they
reached the edge of the snows, and for a time they stood in silence
looking their last upon the valley below them. The older boy drew his
thin hand from Kincaid's big palm and touched the gun swinging in its
holster on his hip.

"Do they cost much, a gun like this?"

"Not much, boy. Why?"

The younger answered for him, smiling at the shrewdness of his guess.

"I know. He's goin' to hunt for father when he's big."

There was no answering smile upon his brother's face, the gravity of
manhood sat strangely upon it as he answered without boastfulness or
bitterness but rather in the tone of one who speaks of a duty:

"I'm goin' to find him, m'sieu, and when I do I'll get him _sure_!"

Dick Kincaid regarded him for a moment from the shadow of his
wide-brimmed hat.

"If you do, boy, and I find it out, I don't know as I'll give you
away."




II

THE HUMOR OF THE FATE LACHESIS


What possible connection, however remote, this tragedy of the Bitter
Root Mountains could have with the future of Doctor Emma Harpe, who,
nearly twenty years later, sat at a pine table in a forlorn Nebraska
town filling out a death certificate, or what part it could play in the
life of Essie Tisdale, the belle of the still smaller frontier town of
Crowheart, in a distant State, who at the moment was cleaning her white
slippers with gasoline, only the Fate Lachesis spinning the thread of
human life from Clotho's distaff could foresee.

When Dr. Harpe, whose fingers were cold with nervousness, made tremulous
strokes which caused the words to look like a forgery, the ugly Fate
Lachesis grinned, and grinned again when Essie Tisdale, many hundred
miles away, held the slipper up before her and dimpled at its arched
smallness; then Lachesis rearranged her threads.

Dr. Harpe arose when the certificate was blotted and, thrusting her
hands deep in the pockets of her loose, square-cut coat, made a turn or
two the length of the office, walking with the long strides of a man.
Unexpectedly her pallid, clear-cut features crumpled, the strained
muscles relaxed, and she dropped into a chair, her elbows on her knees,
her feet wide apart, her face buried in her hands. She was unfeminine
even in her tears.

Alice Freoff was dead! Alice Freoff was dead! Dr. Harpe was still numb
with the chilling shock of it. She had not expected it. Such a result
had not entered into her calculations--not until she had seen her best
friend slipping into the other world had she considered it; then she had
fought frantically to hold her back. Her efforts had been useless and
with a frightful clutching at her heart she had watched the woman sink.
Alexander Freoff was away from home. What would he say when he learned
that his wife had died of an operation which he had forbidden Dr. Harpe
to attempt? Fear checked the tears of grief with which her cheeks were
wet. He was a man of violent temper and he had not liked the intimacy
between herself and his wife. He did not like _her_--Dr. Emma Harpe--and
now that Alice was dead and the fact that she, as a physician, had
blundered, was too obvious to be denied, the situation held alarming
possibilities. Consternation replaced her grief and the tears dried on
her cheeks while again she paced the floor.

She was tired almost to exhaustion when she stopped suddenly and flung
her shoulder in defiance and self-disgust. "Bah! I'm going to pieces
like a schoolgirl. I must pull myself together. Twenty-four hours will
tell the tale and I must keep my nerve. The doctors will--they _must_
stand by me!"

Dr. Harpe was correct in her surmise that her suspense would be short.
The interview between herself and the husband of her dead friend was one
she was not likely to forget. Then the coroner, himself a physician,
sent for her and she found him waiting at his desk. All the former
friendliness was gone from his eyes when he swung in his office chair
and looked at her.

"It will not be necessary, I believe, to explain why I have sent for
you, Dr. Harpe." His cool, impersonal voice was more ominous, more final
than anger, and she found it hard to preserve her elaborate assumption
of ease.

A dull red mounted slowly to her cheeks and faded, leaving them ashen.

"Two doors are open to you." He weighed his words carefully. "If you
remain here, suit will be brought against you by Alexander Freoff; and
since, in this case, you have acted in violation of all recognized
methods of medical science, I will not uphold you. As a matter of fact,
immediate action will be taken by the State Medical Board, of which I am
a member, to disqualify you. If you leave town within twenty-four hours
you will be permitted to go unmolested. This concession I am willing to
make; not for your sake but for the sake of the profession which you
have disgraced. You have my ultimatum; you may take your choice."

She gripped the arms of her chair hard, silent from an inability to
speak. At last she arose uncertainly and said in a voice which was
barely audible:

"I will go."

And so it happened that while Dr. Emma Harpe was saying good-by to a few
wondering acquaintances who accompanied her to the station, Essie
Tisdale was making preparations for a dance which was an event in the
embryotic metropolis of Crowheart, several hundred miles away.

Crowheart was booming and the news of its prosperity had spread.
Settlers were hurrying toward it from the Middle West to take up
homesteads and desert claims in the surrounding country. There was no
specific reason why the town should boom, but it did boom in that
mysterious fashion which far western towns have, up to a certain stage,
after which the reaction sets in.

But there was no thought of reaction now. All was life, eagerness,
good-nature, boundless belief in a great and coming prosperity. The Far
West and the Middle West greeted each other with cordial, outstretched
hands and this dance, though given by a single individual, was in the
nature of a reception from the old settlers to the new as well as to
celebrate the inception of an undertaking which was to insure
Crowheart's prosperity for all time.

Crowheart was platted on a sagebrush "bench" on a spur of a branch
railroad. The snow-covered peaks of a lofty range rose skyward in the
west. To the north was the solitary butte from which the town received
its name. To the south was a line of dimpled foothills, while eastward
stretched a barren vista of cactus, sand, and sagebrush. A shallow
stream flowed between alkali-coated banks on two sides of the town. In
the spring when melting mountain snows filled it to overflowing, it ran
swift and yellow; but in the late fall and winter it dropped to an
inconsequential creek of clear water, hard with alkali. The inevitable
"Main Street" was wide and its two business blocks consisted of
one-story buildings of log and unpainted pine lumber. There was the
inevitable General Merchandise Store with its huge sign on the high
front, and the inevitable newspaper which always exists, like the
faithful at prayer, where two or three are gathered together. There were
saloons in plenty with irrelevant and picturesque names, a dance hall
and a blacksmith shop. The most conspicuous and pretentious building in
Crowheart was the Terriberry House, bilious in color and Spartan in its
architecture, located in the centre of Main Street on a corner. The
houses as yet were chiefly tar-paper shacks or floored and partially
boarded tents, but the sound of the saw and the hammer was heard
week-days and Sundays so no one could doubt but that it was only a
question of time when Crowheart would be comfortably housed. There was
nothing distinctive about Crowheart; it had its prototype in a thousand
towns between Peace River and the Rio Grande; it was typical of the
settlements which are springing up every year along the lines of those
railroads that are stretching their tentacles over the Far West. Yet the
hopes of Crowheart expressed themselves in boulevards outlined with new
stakes and in a park which should, some day, be a breathing spot for a
great city. It was Crowheart's last thought that it should remain
stationary and obscure.

To Dr. Harpe swinging down from the high step of the single passenger
coach in the mixed train of coal and cattle cars, it looked like a
highly colored picture on a drop-curtain. The effect was impressionistic
and bizarre as it lay in the gorgeous light of the setting sun, yet it
pleased and rested the eye of the woman whose thoughts had not been
conducive to an appreciation of scenery during the journey past.

As she drew a deep breath of the thin, stimulating air, the tension
lessened on her strained nerves. She looked back at the interminable
miles over which she had come, the miles which lay between her and the
nightmare of disgrace and failure she had left, and then at the new,
untried field before her. The light of new hope shone in her handsome
hazel eyes, and there was fresh life in her step as she picked up her
suitcase and started across the railroad track toward the town.

"Emma Harpe ... St. Louis," she wrote boldly upon the bethumbed register
of the Terriberry House.

The loungers in the office studied her signature earnestly but it told
them nothing of that which they most wished to know--her business. She
might be selling books upon the instalment plan: she might be peddling
skin-food warranted to restore their weather-beaten complexions to the
texture of a baby's: she _might_ be a new inmate for the dance hall.
Anything was possible in Crowheart.

She was the object of interested glances as she ate her supper in the
long dining-room for, although she was nearly thirty, there was still
something of girlhood in her tired face. But she seemed engrossed in her
own thoughts and returned to her room as soon as she had eaten. There
she lay down upon the patchwork quilt which covered her bed, with her
hands clasped above her head, staring at the ceiling and trying to
forget the past in conjecturing the future.

The clatter of dishes ceased after a time and with the darkness came the
sound of many voices in the hall below. There was laughter and much
scurrying to and fro. Then she heard the explanatory tuning of a violin
and finally a loud and masterful voice urging the selection of partners
for a quadrille. Whoops of exuberance, shrill feminine laughter, and
jocose personalities shouted across the room followed. Then,
simultaneous with a burst of music, the scuffling of sliding soles and
stamping heels told her that the dance was on.

The jubilant shriek of the violin, the lively twang of a guitar, the
"boom! boom" of a drum marking time, the stentorian voice of the master
of ceremonies, reached her plainly as she lay staring at the stars
through the single window of her room. She liked the sounds; they were
cheerful; they helped to shut out the dying face of Alice Freoff and to
dull the pitiless voice of the coroner. She found herself keeping time
with her foot to the music below.

An hour passed with no diminution of the hilarity downstairs and having
no desire to sleep she still lay with her lamp unlighted. While she
listened her ear caught a sound which had no part in the gayety below.
It came faintly at first, then louder as a smothered sob became a sharp
intake of breath.

Dr. Harpe sat up and listened intently. The sound was close, apparently
at the head of the stairs. She was not mistaken, a woman was crying--so
she opened the door.

A crouching figure on the top step shrank farther into the shadow.

"Is that you crying?"

Another sob was the answer.

"What ails you? Come in here."

While she struck a match to light the lamp the girl obeyed mechanically.

Dr. Harpe shoved a chair toward her with her foot.

"Now what's the trouble?" she demanded half humorously. "Are you a
wall-flower or is your beau dancing with another girl?"

There was a rush of tears which the girl covered her face with her hands
to hide.

"Huh--I hit it, did I?"

While she wept softly, Dr. Harpe inspected her with deliberation. She
was tall and awkward, with long, flat feet, and a wide face with high
cheek bones that was Scandinavian in its type. Her straight hair was the
drab shade which flaxen hair becomes before it darkens, and her large
mouth had a solemn, unsmiling droop. Her best feature was her brown,
melancholy, imaginative eyes. She looked like the American-born daughter
of Swedish or Norwegian emigrants and her large-knuckled hands, too,
bespoke the peasant strain.

"Quit it, Niobe, and tell me your name."

The girl raised her tearful eyes.

"Kunkel--Augusta Kunkel."

"Oh, German?"

The girl nodded.

"Well, Miss Kunkel"--she suppressed a smile--"tell me your troubles and
perhaps you'll feel better."

More tears was the girl's reply.

"Look here"--there was impatience in her voice--"there's no man worth
bawling over."

"But--but----" wept the girl, "he said he'd marry me!"

"Isn't he going to?"

"I don't know--he's going away in a few days and he won't talk any more
about it. He's waltzed every waltz to-night with Essie Tisdale and has
not danced once with me."

"So? And who's Essie Tisdale?"

"She's the waitress here."

"Downstairs? In this hotel?"

Augusta Kunkel nodded.

"I don't blame him," Dr. Harpe replied bluntly, "I saw her at supper.
She's a peach!"

"She's the belle of Crowheart," admitted the girl reluctantly.

"And who is _he_? What's _his name_?"

The girl hesitated but as though yielding to a stronger will than her
own, she whimpered:

"Symes--Andy P. Symes."

"Why don't you let Andy P. Symes go if he wants to? He isn't the only
man in Crowheart, is he?"

"But he promised!" The girl wrung her hands convulsively. "He promised
_sure_!"

A look of quick suspicion flashed across Dr. Harpe's face.

"He _promised_--oh, I _see_!"

She arose and closed the door.

The interview was interrupted by a bounding step upon the stairs and a
little tap upon the door, and when it was opened the belle of Crowheart
stood flushed and radiant on the threshold.

"We want you to come down," she said in her vivacious, friendly voice.
"It must be lonely for you up here, and Mr. Symes--he's giving the
dance, you know--he sent me up to ask you." She caught sight of the
girl's tear-stained face and stepped quickly into the room. "Why,
Gussie." She laid her arm about her shoulder. "What's the matter?"

Augusta Kunkel drew away with frank hostility in her brown eyes and
answered:

"Nothing's the matter--I'm tired, that's all."

Though she flushed at the rebuff, she murmured gently: "I'm sorry,
Gussie." Turning to Dr. Harpe, she urged persuasively:

"Please come down. We're having the best time _ever_!"

Dr. Harpe hesitated, for she thought of Alice Freoff, but the violin
was shrieking enticingly and the voice of the master of ceremonies in
alluring command floated up the stairway:

"Choose your partners for a waltz, gents!"

She jerked her head at Augusta Kunkel.

"Come along--don't sit up here and mope."

Andy P. Symes, waiting in the hall below, was a little puzzled by the
intentness of the newcomer's gaze as she descended the stairs, but at
the bottom he extended a huge hand:

"I'm glad you decided to join us, Miss----"

"Harpe--Doctor Emma Harpe."

"Oh," surprised amusement was in his tone, "you've come to settle among
us, perhaps? Permit me to welcome you, Dr. Harpe. We are to be
congratulated. Our nearest physician is sixty miles away, so you will
have the field to yourself. You should prosper. Do you come from the
East?"

She looked him in the eyes.

"St. Louis."

"Take your pardners for the waltz, gents!"

Andy P. Symes held out his arms in smiling invitation while the news
flashed round the room that the newcomer with the cold, immobile face,
the peculiar pallor of which contrasted strongly with their own
sun-blistered skins, was a "lady-doctor" who had come to live in
Crowheart.

The abandon, the freedom of it all, appealed strongly to Dr. Harpe. The
atmosphere was congenial, and when the waltz was done she asked that she
might be allowed to sit quietly for a time since she found herself more
fatigued by her long journey than she had realized; but, in truth, she
desired to familiarize herself with the character of the people among
whom her future work lay.

A noisy, heterogeneous gathering it was, boisterous without vulgarity,
free without familiarity. There were no covert glances of dislike or
envy, no shrugs of disdain, no whispered innuendoes. The social lines
which breed these things did not exist. Every man considered his
neighbor and his neighbor's wife as good as himself and his genuine
liking was in his frank glance, his hearty tones, his beaming, friendly
smile. Men and women looked at each other clear-eyed and straight.

The piercing "yips" of cowboys meant nothing but an excess of spirits.
The stamping of feet, the shouts and laughter were indicative only of
effervescent youth seeking an outlet. Most were young, all were full of
life and hope, and the world was far away, that world where clothes and
money matter.

The scene was typical of a new town in the frontier West. The old
settlers and the new mingled gaily. The old timers with their
indifferent dress, their vernacular and free manners of the mountains
and ranges brushed elbows with the more modern folk of the poor and the
middle class of the Middle West. They were uninteresting and mediocre,
these newcomers, yet the sort who thrive astonishingly upon new soil,
who become prosperous and self-important in an atmosphere of equality.
There were, too, educated failures from the East and--people who had
blundered. But all alike to-night, irrespective of pasts or presents or
futures, were bent upon enjoying themselves to their capacities.

Callous-handed ranchers and their faded wives promenaded arm in arm.
Sheep-herders and cow-punchers passed in the figures of the dance eyeing
each other in mutual antipathy. The neat "hand-me-downs" of grocery
clerks contrasted with the copper-riveted overalls of shy and silent
prospectors from the hills who stood against the walls envying their
dapper ease. A remittance man from Devonshire whose ancestral halls had
sheltered an hundred knights danced with Faro Nell, who gambled for a
living, while the station agent's attenuated daughter palpitated in the
arms of a husky stage-driver. Mr. Percy Parrott, the sprightly cashier
of the new bank, swung the new milliner from South Dakota. Sylvanus
Starr, the gifted editor of the Crowheart _Courier_, schottisched with
Mrs. "Hank" Terriberry, while his no less gifted wife swayed in the arms
of the local barber, and his two lovely daughters, "Pearline" and
"Planchette," tripped it respectively with the "barkeep" of the White
Elephant Saloon and a Minneapolis shoe-drummer. In the centre of the
floor the new plasterer and his wife moved through the figures of the
French minuet with the stiff-kneed grace of two self-conscious giraffes,
while Mrs. Percy Parrott, a long-limbed lady with a big, white,
Hereford-like face, capered with "Tinhorn Frank," the oily, dark,
craftily observant proprietor of the "Walla Walla Restaurant and
Saloon." Mr. Abe Tutts, of the Flour and Feed Store, skimmed the floor
with the darting ease of a water-spider dragging beside him his far less
active wife, a belligerent-appearing and somewhat hard-featured lady
several years his senior.

But the long, crowded dining-room held two central figures, one of which
was Andy P. Symes, and the other was Essie Tisdale, the little waitress
of the Terriberry House and the belle of Crowheart.

Symes moved among his guests with the air of a man who found amusement
in mingling with those he deemed his inferiors even while patently
bidding for their admiration and regard. His height and breadth of
shoulder made him conspicuous even in this gathering of tall men. His
finely shaped head was well set but in contrast his utterly
inconsequential nose came as something of a shock. His face was florid
and genial and he had a word for the most obscure.

Yet the trained and sensitive observer would have felt capabilities for
boorishness beneath his amiability, a lack of sincerity in his impartial
and too fulsome compliments. His manner denoted a degree of social
training and a knowledge of social forms acquired in another than his
present environment, but he was too fond of the limelight--it cheapened
him; too broad in his attentions to women--it coarsened him; his
waistcoat was the dingy waistcoat of a man of careless habits; his linen
was not too immaculate and the nails of his blunt fingers showed lack of
attention. He was the sort of man who is nearly, but not quite, a
gentleman.

The slim little belle of Crowheart seemed to be everywhere, her youthful
spirits were unflagging, and her contagious, merry laugh rang out
constantly from the centre of lively groups. Her features were delicate
and there was pride, sensitiveness and good-breeding in her mouth with
its short, red upper lip. Her face held more than prettiness, for there
was thoughtfulness, as well, in her blue eyes and innate kindness in its
entire expression. Her light brown hair was soft and plentiful and added
to her stature by its high dressing. She was natural of manner and
graceful with the ease of happy youth and her flushed cheeks were pinker
than her simple gown. She looked farther removed from her occupation
than any woman in the room and to Dr. Harpe, following her with her
eyes, the connection seemed incongruous.

"Moses!" she whispered to herself, "but that little biscuit-shooter
would be a winner if she had clothes."

Other eyes than Dr. Harpe's were following Essie Tisdale and with an
intentness which finally attracted her attention. She stopped as she was
passing a swarthy, silent man in the corner, who had not moved from his
chair since the beginning of the dance, and, arching her eyebrows, she
asked mischievously:

"Don't you mean to ask me for a single dance, Mr. Dubois--not one?"

To her surprise and the amusement of all who heard, he arose at once,
bending his squat figure in an awkward bow, and replied:

"Certainly, m'amselle, if you will give me that pleasure."

And all the roomful stared in mingled astonishment and glee when old
Edouard Dubois, the taciturn and little-liked sheepman from the
"Limestone Rim," led Essie Tisdale out upon the floor to complete a set.

The evening was well along when Dr. Harpe laid her hand upon the
unpainted railing which served as a bannister and turned to look once
more at the roomful of hot, ecstatically happy dancers before she went
upstairs.

"Harpe," she murmured, and her eyes narrowed, "Harpe, we're going to
make good here. We're going to win out. We're going to make money hand
over fist."

And even with her own boastful words there came a pang which had its
source in a knowledge her dance with Symes had brought her. Something
was dead within her! That something was the spirit of youth, and with it
had gone the best of Emma Harpe.




III

A MÉSALLIANCE


Crowheart was surprised but not shocked when the engagement of Andy P.
Symes to the blacksmith's sister was announced. It saw no mésalliance in
the union. It was merely unaware that he had been attentive to Augusta
Kunkel. Now they were to be married in the long dining-room of the
Terriberry House and take the night train for Chicago on their
honeymoon.

Dr. Harpe standing at the window of her new office on the second floor
of the hotel smiled to herself as she saw the chairs going inside which
served equally well for funerals or for social functions. The match, she
felt, was really of her making.

"You've got to do it," she had told him. "You've simply got to do it."

He had come to see her at Augusta's insistence.

"But!" he had groaned; "a Kunkel! Perhaps you don't know--but I'm one of
the Symes of Maine. Great-grandfather a personal friend of Alexander
Hamilton's, and all that. My family don't expect _much_ of me since I'm
the black sheep, but," a dull red had surged over his face, "they expect
something better of me than a Kunkel!"

She had shrugged her shoulders.

"Suit yourself, I'm only telling you how it looks to me. You'll queer
yourself forever if you don't marry her, for this country is still
western enough to respect women. You are just starting in to promote
this irrigation project and if you succeed you can't tell what the
future will hold for you politically; this is just the sort of thing to
bob up and down you. You know I'm right."

"But she looks so obviously what she is," he had groaned miserably.
"Some day I may want to go home--and think of introducing Augusta
Kunkel!"

"You are wrong there," she had replied with conviction, "Augusta has
possibilities. She has good eyes, her voice is low, her English is far
better than you might expect, and, best of all, she's tall and slender.
If she was short and fat I'd call her rather hopeless, but you hang good
clothes on these slim ones and it works wonders. Besides, she's
imitative as a parrot."

He had thrown his arms aloft in despair.

"But think of it!--the rest of my life--with a parrot."

"It's the lesser of two evils," she had urged, and in the end he had
said dully:

"I guess you're right, Dr. Harpe. Your advice no doubt is good, though,
like your medicine, a bitter dose just now. You've done me a favor, I
suppose, and I'll not forget it."

"When the door of her office had closed upon his broad back she had said
to herself:

"I'll see that you don't forget it." And she repeated it again with
renewed satisfaction. She liked the feeling that she already had become
a factor in the affairs of Crowheart and she intended to remain one.

The practice of medicine with Dr. Harpe was frankly for personal gain.
No ideals had influenced her in the choice of her profession and her
practice of it had developed no ambition save the single one of
building up a bank account. The ethical distinction between the trades
and professions, which is based upon the fact that the professional man
or woman is supposed to take up his or her life work primarily because
he loves both his profession and the people whom it may benefit, was a
distinction which she never had grasped. She practised medicine in the
same commercial spirit that a cheap drummer builds up a trade. She had
no sentiment regarding it, none of the ambitious dreams of high
professional standing attained by meritorious work which inspire those
who achieve. It was a business pure and simple; each patient was a
customer.

Another consideration in her choice of this profession was the freedom
it gave her. Because of it she was exempt from many of the restrictions
and conventionalities which hampered her sex, and above all else she
disliked restraint.

She was the single result of a "typhoid romance." Her mother, a trained
nurse, had attended a St. Louis politician during a long illness. Upon
his recovery he married his nurse and as promptly deserted her,
providing a modest support for the child. She had grown to womanhood in
a cheap boarding school, attaining thereby a superficial education but
sufficient to enable her to pass the preliminary examinations necessary
to begin her studies in the medical college which was an outcast among
its kind and known among the profession as a "diploma mill." She
selected it because the course was easy and the tuition light, though
its equipment was a farce and its laboratory too meagre to deserve the
name; one of the commercial medical colleges turning out each year by
the hundreds, for a few dollars, illiterate graduates, totally unfitted
by temperament and education for a profession that calls for the highest
and best, sending them out in hordes like licensed murderers to
prescribe and operate among the trusting and the ignorant.

Dr. Harpe had framed her sheepskin and been duly photographed in her
cap and gown; then, after a short hospital experience, she had gone to
the little Nebraska town where perhaps the most forceful comment upon
the success of her career there was that the small steamer trunk, which
she was now opening, contained very comfortably both her summer and
winter wardrobe.

Her pose was an air of camaraderie, of blunt good-nature. Her
conspicuous walk was a swaggering stride, while in dress she affected
the masculine severity of some professional women. Her hair was the dull
red that is nearly brown and she wore it coiled in trying simplicity at
the back of her head. Her handsome eyes were the hazel that is
alternately brown and green and gray, sometimes an odd mixture of all
three. Ordinarily there was a suspicion of hardness in her face but
there was also upon occasions a kind of winsomeness, an unexpected
peeping out of a personality which was like the wraith of the child
which she once had been--a suggestion of girlish charm and spontaneity
utterly unlike her usual self.

This attractive phase of her personality was uppermost as she sought in
the trunk for something to wear, and a smile curved the corners of her
straight lips and brought out a faint cleft in her square chin, as she
inspected its contents.

She found what she wanted in a plain cloth skirt and a white tailored
waist with stiffly starched cuffs, and a man's sleeve links. When she
was dressed a man's linen waistcoat with a black silk watch-fob hanging
from the pocket added further to the unfeminine _tout ensemble_. She
liked the effect, and, as she thrust a scarf-pin in the long black
"four-in-hand" before her mirror, she viewed the result with
satisfaction.

Dr. Harpe regarded the wedding as exceedingly opportune for herself,
bringing in as it did the settlers from the isolated ranches and
outlying districts of the big county, and she meant it to serve as her
real debut in the community.

It was in fact a notable event for the reason that it was the first
wedding in Crowheart, and, since the invitation was general, the guests
were coming from far and near to show their approval and incidentally
perhaps to partake of the champagne which it was rumored was to flow
like water. Champagne was the standard by which Crowheart gauged the
success of an entertainment and certainly Andy P. Symes was not the man
to serve sarsaparilla at his own wedding.

When Dr. Harpe came downstairs she found the long dining-room cleared of
its tables and already well filled with guests. "Curly" the camp cook
was caressing his violin, and "Snake River Jim," tolerably drunk, was in
his place beside him, while Ole Peterson, redolent of the livery-stable
in which he worked, constantly felt his muscle to show that he was
prepared to do his share with the big bass drum.

As Andy P. Symes moved through the rapidly growing crowd no one but Dr.
Harpe guessed that he winced inwardly at the resounding slaps upon his
back and the congratulations or that his heart all but failed him when
he saw his bride-to-be in her bobinet veil, a flush upon her broad face
and following his every movement with adoring eyes. To all but Dr. Harpe
he looked the fortunate and beaming bridegroom and only she saw the tiny
lines which sleeplessness had left about his eyes or detected the
hollowness of his frequent laughter.

It was more or less of a relief to all when the ceremony was over and
the nervous and perspiring Justice of the Peace, miserable in a collar,
had wished them every known joy. It was a relief to Symes who kissed his
bride perfunctorily and returned her to weeping "Grandmother" Kunkel's
arms--a relief to those impatient to dance--a relief to the thirsty
whose surreptitious glances wandered in spite of their best efforts
toward the pile of champagne cases in the corner.

But the reward of patience came to all, and as the violin and guitar
tuned up the popping of corks was assurance enough that the unsurpassed
thirst created by alkali dust would shortly be assuaged. "Hank"
Terriberry, in whose competent charge Symes had placed this portion of
the wedding entertainment, realizing that, at best, pouring from a
bottle and drinking from a glass is a slow and tedious process, to
facilitate matters had provided two large, bright, new dish-pans which
he filled with wine, also a plentiful supply of bright, new, tin
dippers.

They drank Symes's health in long, deep draughts and it was with some
forebodings that Symes noted the frequency with which the same guests
appeared in line. Symes had no great desire that his wedding should go
down in the annals of Crowheart as the most complete drunk in its
history nor was his bank account inexhaustible. Also he observed with,
annoyance that his newly-created brother-in-law, Adolph Kunkel, had
retired to a quiet corner where he might drink from the bottle
unmolested. Adolph Kunkel, sober, was bad enough, but Adolph Kunkel,
drunk, was worse.

That his fears were not unfounded was shortly made evident by the
appearance of Sylvanus Starr with a bland, bucolic smile upon his
wafer-like countenance and his scant foretop tied in a baby-blue ribbon
which had embellished the dainty ham sandwiches provided by Mrs.
Terriberry. By the time the dance was well under way eyes had brightened
perceptibly and sunburned faces had taken on a deeper hue while Snake
River Jim sat with a pickle behind his ear and his eyes rolled to the
ceiling as though entranced by his own heavenly strains.

As the room grew warmer, the conversation waxed louder, the dance faster
and the whoops of exuberance more frequent, until Bedlam reigned. Percy
Parrot chancing to observe "Tinhorn Frank" sliding toward the door with
two unopened bottles of champagne protruding from his coat pockets made
a low tackle and clasped him about the ankles. As "Tinhorn" lay prone he
was shamed in vivid English by the graceful barber while the new
plasterer excused himself from his partner long enough to kick the
prostrate ingrate in the ribs. Mrs. "Hank" Terriberry, whose hair looked
like a pair of angora "chaps" in a high wind, returning from her third
trip to the dish-pan, burst into tears at the man's depravity and
inadvertently wiped her streaming eyes on the end of her long lace jabot
instead of her handkerchief.

Sylvanus Starr, declaring that his chivalrous nature was unable to
endure the sight of a woman's tears, sought to divert her by slipping
his arm about her waist and whirling her dizzily the length of the room
and back again where they were met by Mr. Terriberry who, while
playfully endeavoring to snatch his wife from the editor's encircling
arms, accidentally stepped on the train of her black satin skirt. There
was a popping, ripping sound! In the brief but awful second while this
handsome creation slid to the floor, Mrs. Terriberry stood
panic-stricken in a short, red-flannel petticoat. She screamed
piercingly and with the sound of her own voice recovered her presence of
mind. Swooping, she picked up the garment and bounded out of the room,
thereby revealing upon her plump calves the encircling stripes of a pair
of white and black stockings.

The milliner, who was clairvoyant, covered her face with her gauze fan,
while Pearline and Planchette Starr asked to be taken into the air, and
left the room each leaning heavily upon an arm of the "Sheep King of
Poison Crick."

The remittance man from Devonshire removed the crash towel from its
roller in the wash-room off the hotel office, and spread it carefully on
the floor in a corner to protect his clothing while he refreshed himself
with a short nap.

A Roumanian prince who had that day returned from a big game hunt in the
mountains and who had been cordially urged by Symes to honor his
wedding, adjusted his monocle and stood on a chair under a kerosene
wall-lamp that he might the better inspect the fig "filling" of Mrs.
Terriberry's layer cake which he seemed to regard with some suspicion.

Mrs. Abe Tutts, who was reputed to have histrionic ability, of her own
accord recited in a voice which made the welkin ring: "Shoot if you will
this old gray head, But spare my country's flag." Whereupon "Baby"
Briggs, six foot two in his cowboy boots, produced a six-shooter and
humorously pretended to be about to take her at her word. Mrs. Tutts was
revived from a fainting condition by a drink while "Baby" Briggs was
relieved of his weapon.

"Take your pardners for a quadrille!" yelled Curly, the camp cook,
rising from his chair.

The guests scrambled for places in the quickly formed sets.

"Swing your pardner!" he whooped.

Andy P. Symes slipped his arm about Essie Tisdale's waist and the dance
moved fast and furious.

"Join your hands and circle to the left!"

Around they went in a giddy whirl and starched petticoats stood out like
hoopskirts.

"First lady swing with the right hand round with the right hand gent!"

The train of Mrs. Abe Tutts's diaphanous "tea-gown" laid out on the
breeze, thereby revealing the fact that she was wearing Congress
gaiters, comfortable but not "dressy."

"Pardner with your left with your left hand round!"

Andy P. Symes held Essie Tisdale's hand in a lingering clasp and
whispered in foolish flattery:

"Terpsichore herself outdone!"

"Swing in the centre and seven hands around. Birdie hop out and crow hop
in! Take holt of paddies and run around agin!"

Abe Tutts executed a double shuffle on the corner.

"Allemande Joe! Eight hand to pardner and around you go! Balance to
corners, don't be slack! Turn right around and take a back track! When
you git home, don't be afraid. Swing her agin and all promenade!"

It was a glorious dance and it moved unflaggingly to the end; but when
it was done and the dancers laughing and exhausted sought their seats,
it was discovered that Snake River Jim had fallen to weeping because he
said it was his unhappy lot to work while others danced.

Therefore Sylvanus Starr suggested that out of a delicate regard for an
artist's feelings, and no one could deny but Snake River Jim was that,
the dance be temporarily suspended while the bridegroom and others
expressed their sentiments and delight in the occasion by a few remarks,
Sylvanus Starr himself setting the example by bursting into an eulogy
which had the impassioned fervor of inspiration.

The vocabulary of laudatory adjectives gleaned in many years' experience
in the obituary department of an eastern newspaper were ejected like
volcanic matter, red hot and unrestrained, running over and around the
name of Symes to harden into sentences of which "a magnificent specimen
of manhood, a physical and intellectual giant, gallantly snatching from
our midst the fairest flower that ever bloomed upon a desert waste,"
only moderately illustrates the editor's gift of language.

When Andy P. Symes stood on a chair and faced the expectant throng the
few trite remarks which he had in mind all but fled when his eyes fell
for the first time upon his bride buttoned into her "going away gown."
As he mounted the chair his face wore the set smile of the man who
means to die a nervy death on the gallows. His voice sounded strained
and unnatural to himself as he began:

"Ladies and gentlemen."

"Wee-hee!" squealed a youth in a leather collar and a rattleskin
necktie.

"This is the happiest moment of my life!"

"Wee-ough! It ought to be!" yelled the "Sheep King of Poison Crick" as
he pressed the arms of the Misses Starr gently and impartially against
his sides.

"Also the proudest moment." He looked at his bride, noting that she wore
a broach which might have belonged on a set of harness.

"Yip! Yip! Yee-ough!"

"I am deeply conscious of my own unworthiness and not insensible to the
fact that the gods have singled me out for special favor----"

Any reference to the gods was considered a mark of learning and
eloquence, so Symes's humble admission was loudly applauded.

"Love, the Wise Ones say, 'is blind.' If this is true it is my earnest
wish that I may remain so, for I desire to continue to regard my wife as
the most beautiful, attractive, charming of her sex." He bowed
elaborately toward the grotesque figure whose adoring eyes were fixed
upon his face.

The guests howled in ecstasy at this flight of sentiment and only Dr.
Harpe caught the sneering note beneath the commonplaces he uttered with
such convincing fervor.

"What a cad," she thought, yet she looked in something like admiration
at his towering figure. "If only he had brains in proportion to his body
he might accomplish great things here," she murmured. Shrugging her
shoulder, she added: "I envy him his chance."

It did not occur to any person present that this wedding was an
important, far-reaching event to any save the principals; but to Essie
Tisdale and to Dr. Harpe it was a turning point in their careers. It
meant waning triumphs to the merry little belle of Crowheart, while it
spread a fallow field before Dr. Harpe the planting of which in deeds of
good or evil was as surely in her hands as is the seed the farmer sows
for his ultimate harvest. Which it was to be, can be surmised from the
fact that already she was considering how soon, and in what way, she
might utilize her knowledge after Symes's return from his wedding
journey.




IV

"THE GROUND FLOOR"


While Andy P. Symes on his honeymoon was combining business with
pleasure in that vague region known as "Back East," and his bride was
learning not to fold the hotel napkin or call the waiter "sir," the
population of Crowheart was increasing so rapidly that the town had
growing pains. Where, last month, the cactus bloomed, tar-paper shacks
surrounded by chicken-wire, kid-proof fences was home the next to
families of tow-heads.

Crowheart, the citizens of the newly incorporated town told each other,
was booming _right_.

They came in prairie schooners, travel-stained and weary, their horses
thin and jaded from the long, heavy pull across the sandy trail of the
sagebrush desert. With funds barely sufficient for horse feed and a few
weeks' provisions, they came without definite knowledge of conditions or
plans. A rumor had reached them back there in Minnesota or Iowa,
Nebraska or Missouri, of the opportunities in this new country and,
anyway, they wanted to move--_where_ was not a matter of great moment.
Others came by rail, all bearing the earmarks of straitened
circumstances, and few of them with any but the most vague ideas as to
what they had come for beyond the universal expectation of getting rich,
somehow, somewhere, some time. They were poor alike, and the first
efforts of the head of each household were spent in the construction of
a place of shelter for himself and family. The makeshifts of poverty
were seldom if ever the subject of ridicule or comment, for most had a
sympathetic understanding of the emergencies which made them necessary.
Kindness, helpfulness, good-fellowship were in the air.

When Ephriam Baskitt loomed up on the horizon with two freight wagons
filled with the dust-covered canned goods of a defunct grocery store and
twenty-four hours later was a fixture, nobody saw anything humorous in
the headline in the _Courier_ which heralded him as "The Merchant Prince
of Crowheart." Two new saloons opened while "Curly" resigned as chef for
the Lazy S Outfit to become the orchestra in a new dance hall which
arrived about midnight in a prairie schooner.

As Dr. Harpe made friends with the newcomers and continued to ingratiate
herself with the old, she sometimes felt that the death of Alice Freoff
was not after all the tragedy it had at first seemed. She missed the
woman--not the woman so much either, as the association--and there was
no one in Crowheart to fill her place, so she was frequently lonely,
often bored, with the intensely practical, unsophisticated women whom
she attracted strongly. Sometimes she thought of Augusta Kunkel and a
derisive smile always curved her lips as she attempted to picture her in
a worldly setting and the smile grew when she tried to imagine Symes's
sensations while presenting her to his friends. She indulged, too, in
speculation as to the outcome of the marriage, but could not venture a
prophecy since it was one of those affairs to which no ending would be
improbable.

But while Dr. Harpe speculated, observation and the suggestions of Andy
P. Symes were working wonders in the appearance of the gawky,
long-limbed woman. A session with a hair-dresser had not been wasted,
for she had learned to dress her hair in the prevailing mode. Symes had
lost no time in rushing her to an establishment where the brown cashmere
basque and many gored skirt had been exchanged for a gown of fashionable
cut. A pair of French stays developed indications of a figure and the
concho-like broach had been discarded, while Augusta herself had learned
that black silk mitts had not been greatly in vogue for nearly a quarter
of a century. The conspicuous marvel which had displayed the skill of
the clairvoyant milliner from South Dakota had been replaced by a hat of
good lines and simplicity, and, for the first time in her life, Augusta
Kunkel rustled when she walked.

When the transformation was complete, Andy P. Symes sighed in a little
more than relief, and mentally observed that in the course of human
events he _might_ be able to introduce her to his family.

Nor was Symes himself idle in a land where Capital hung like an
over-ripe peach waiting to be plucked by the proper hand. Mr. Symes was
convinced that his was the hand, so he lost no opportunity of widening
his circle of desirable acquaintances.

In his wide-brimmed Stetson, with his broad shoulders towering above the
average man, his genial smile and jovial manners, he was the typical
free, big-hearted westerner of the eastern imagination. And he liked the
rôle; also he played it well. Symes was essentially a poseur. He loved
the limelight like a showman. To be foremost, to lead, was essential to
his happiness. He demanded satellites and more satellites. His love of
prominence amounted to a passion. Sycophancy was as acceptable as real
regard, since each catered to his vanity.

It required money, much money, to live up to the popular conception of
the type he chose to represent. To successfully carry out his rôle of
the breezy, liberal, unconventional westerner required money enough to
include the cabman on the pavement in his invitations to drink, money
enough to donate bank notes to bellboys, to wave change to waiters, to
occupy boxes where he could lay his conspicuous Stetson upon the rail.
Having indulged himself in these delightful extravagances, Symes was
suddenly recalled one morning to a realization of the fact that earthly
paradises end by a curt notification from his bank that he had overdrawn
his account.

This was awkward. It was particularly awkward to Symes because he had no
assets. With the singular improvidence which distinguished him he had
not provided for this exigency before leaving Crowheart. True, he had
made a vague calculation which would seem to indicate that he had
sufficient funds to last the trip, but it was more extended than he had
anticipated and he had forgotten to deduct the amount of the checks
which he had given in payment for the champagne provided in such
unstinted quantities by "Hank" Terriberry.

Not only was Symes without reserve funds but he had a large hotel bill
owing. Yes, it was high time he was "doing something." "Doing something"
to Mr. Symes, meant devising some means of securing an income without
physical and no great mental effort, something which should be
compatible with the notable House of Symes.

Had he borne any other than that sacred name he would have turned to
insurance or a mail order business with the same unerring instinct with
which the sunflower turns to the sun, but this avenue was closed to him
by the necessity of preserving the dignity of his name. It was necessary
for him as a Symes to promote some enterprise which would give him the
power and prestige in the community which belonged to him.

Mr. Symes had been East before with this end in view. As he himself
observed, "he never went East except to eat oysters and raise money." He
had been much more successful as an oyster eater than a promoter. There
was that vein of coking coal over beyond the "Limestone Rim"; he nearly
landed that, but the investors discovered too soon that it was 150 miles
from a railroad. There was an embryo coal mine back in the hills--a fine
proposition but open to the same objection. Also an asbestos deposit,
valueless for the same reason. He had tried copper prospects with
startling assays and had found himself shunned nor had mountains of
marble aroused the enthusiasm of Capital. They had listened with marked
coldness to his story of a wonderful oil seepage and had turned a deaf
ear on natural gas. He had baited a hook with a stratum of gypsum which
would furnish the world with cement. Capital had barely sniffed at the
bait. Nor had banks of shale adapted to the making of a perfect brick
appealed to its jaded palate. But Symes was never at a loss for
something to promote, for there was always a nebula of schemes vaguely
present in his prolific brain. Irrigation was the opportunity of the
moment and he meant to grab it with a strangle hold. He had been
dilatory but now he intended to get down to business.

If only he could hang on until he accomplished his end! Symes stopped
manicuring his nails with a pin, which he kept in the lapel of his coat
for that commendable purpose, and counted his money. He was thankful
that since he _had_ overdrawn his account he had done it so liberally
as, by strict economy, it would enable him to remain a short while and
depart with his credit still unimpaired.

Augusta Symes regarded the pile of crisp banknotes with pleased eyes.
She could not recollect ever having seen so much money together before;
the proceeds of horse-shoeing and wagon repairs came mostly in silver.
Placing the banknotes in his wallet with considerably more than his
usual care, Mr. Symes paced the floor of their corner suite with the
slow, measured strides of meditation, his noble head sunk upon his
breast and his broad brow corrugated in thought. Mrs. Symes's eyes
followed him in silent and respectful admiration.

When he stopped, finally, in the middle of the room, the fire of
enthusiasm was newly kindled in his eyes and an unconscious squaring of
his shoulders announced that he was now prepared to "do something."

Symes really had initial energy and the trait was most apparent when
driven by necessity. The first step toward getting his enterprise under
way was the bringing together of the people he hoped to interest. He
reached for his hat and straightened his scarf before the mirror.

Augusta watched the preparations in some dismay; she dreaded being alone
in the great hotel.

"Will you be gone long, Mr. Symes?"

"Good God! Don't call me Mister Symes," he burst out in unexpected
exasperation.

Augusta's eyes filled with tears.

"But--but everybody calls you 'Andy' and--and just 'Symes' sounds so
familiar. Why can't I call you 'Phidias?'"

"Phidias! Do, by all means, call me Phidias. I dote on Phidias! I love
the combination--Phidias Symes. Father was drunk when he named me."

He slammed the door behind him, forgetting to explain that he was not
returning for luncheon or dinner so, that evening, while Augusta
wandered aimlessly through the rooms, both hungry and anxious yet afraid
to venture into the big dining-room, Andy P. Symes was saying with
impressive emphasis as he fumbled in a box of cabanas:

"Big opportunities, I am convinced, seldom come more than once to a
man."

His guests listened to the trite axiom with the respect due one who has
met and grappled successfully with his one great chance. His well-fed
appearance, his genial, contented smile, gave an impression of
prosperity even when his linen was frayed and his elbows glossy; now in
the latest achievement of a good tailor it was difficult to conceive him
as being anything less than a millionaire.

"And this," Symes looked squarely in each eager eye in turn, "this,
gentlemen, is such an opportunity."

The timid voice of a man who had made a hundred thousand from a patent
fly-trap broke the awed silence.

"It sounds good."

"_Sounds_ good! It _is_ good." Mr. Symes clenched his huge fist and
emphasized the declaration with a blow upon the table which made the
dishes rattle.

"Think of it," he went on, "two hundred thousand acres that can be made
to bloom like the rose. An earthly paradise of our own making." The
flowery figures were borrowed from a railroad folder but Mr. Symes had
grasped them with the avidity of true genius and made them his own. "And
how?"

The waiter starting away with a tray load of dishes stopped to learn.

"By the mere introduction of water upon the most fertile soil in the
world! Is there anything like it--a miracle worker!" Mr. Symes shut one
eye and peered into an empty bottle. "And how can this be done?" He
answered himself. "By the expenditure of a ridiculously small amount of
money; the absurd sum of $250,000. And look at the returns!"

By the intentness of their gaze it was evident that all were willing
enough to look. Symes lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper and swept
the air with his outspread fingers.

"A clean million!"

The man who made only six thousand a year selling plumbers' supplies,
gulped.

"But who's goin' to buy it?" It was the timid voice of the Fly-trap
King.

"_Buy it!_" The questioner withered before Symes's scorn. "Buy it? Why,
the world is land-hungry--crying for land!--and water. But I've
considered all that; I've arranged for it," Mr. Symes went on with a
touch of impatience. "We'll colonize it. We'll import Russian Jews to
raise sugar-beets for the sugar-beet factory which we will establish.
They will buy it for $50 an acre cash or $60 an acre with 10 per cent.
interest upon the deferred payments. It's very simple."

"But--but--I thought Russian Jews went in mostly for collar buttons,
shoe-strings and lace--mercantile enterprises--commercial natures, you
know? Besides, where they going to get their money for the first
payment?"

Symes curbed his irritation at the piffling objections of the Fly-trap
King and responded tolerantly.

"We'll organize a bank and loan 'em the money. If they fail to come
through at the specified time the land will return to the company and
we'll have their improvements, making them a small allowance for same,
at our discretion. We'll lay out a town and build an Opera House, get
electric light and street railway franchises--a million? Why, there's
millions in sight when you consider the possibilities."

The painting of the roseate picture had flushed Mr. Symes's cheeks;
already "Symesville" or "Symeston" rose clear before his mental vision,
while his listeners endeavored to calculate their share of the millions
when proportioned in accordance with the investment of all their
available cash. Certainly the returns were temptingly large and the
least optimistic among them believed he could convince his wife of the
perfect safety of the investment, the success of which was practically
assured by the fact that Andy P. Symes for an infinitesimal salary, as
compared to his ability, was willing to assume the management.

A slender, blond gentleman, who derived a satisfactory income from the
importation of Scotch woollens and Irish linens, confessed that for
years he had cherished a secret desire to do something for mankind,
providing he was assured of a reasonable return upon his investment,
and, with the King of Brobdingnag, believed that the man who made, say,
two sugar-beets grow where only one grew before, rendered an
incalculable service to the human race.

The other guests expressed their admiration of the woollen importer's
high sentiments, and while they admitted that no such noble impulse
governed them they subscribed generously for stock in the company which
was formed then and there to apply for the segregation of 200,000 acres
of irrigable land.

Mr. Symes talked familiarly of State Land Boards, water rights, flood
water, ditches, laterals, subsoil and seepage, the rotation of crops and
general productiveness until even the cynical politician who controlled
the negro vote in his ward began to realize that it was a liberal
education merely to know Andy P. Symes, not to mention the distinction
of being associated with him in business.

Inspired by the prospect of once again handling real money, Andy P.
Symes talked with an earnestness and fluency which cast a hypnotic spell
upon his listeners. Swiftly, graphically, he outlined the future of the
country which would be opened up to settlement by this great irrigation
project. His florid face turned a deeper red, his eyes sparkled as the
winged imagination of the natural promoter began to play. It was of the
dirigible kind, Symes's imagination, he could steer it in any direction.
It could rise to any heights. It now shot upward and he saw himself at
the head of a project which would make his name a household word
throughout the State. He saw crowds of Russian Jews crying hosannas as
he walked along the street of Symesville; he heard the clang of
trolleys; he saw the smoke of factories; he heard the name of Symes upon
the lips of little children; he saw, but the dazzling vision made him
blink and he leaned back in his chair with the beneficent smile of a
man who had just endowed a hospital for crippled children, while he
permitted himself to accept a subscription for $15,000 from a guest who
had cleared that modest sum in the manufacture of white lead and paint.
A slow and laborious process compared to the sale of irrigated land to
Russian Jews.

Symes's guests wrung his hand at parting, in silent gratitude at being
permitted to get in on the ground floor of what was undoubtedly the
greatest money making enterprise still open to investors. And they left
him with the assurance of their hearty co-operation and willingness to
endeavor to raise the balance among their friends.

While the subscribers for the stock of the Symes Irrigation Project were
rousing their wives from their first sleep to gloat with them over the
unprecedented good fortune which had thrown the big-hearted and shrewd
but honest westerner in their paths, that person was returning from a
night lunch cart with two hot frankfurter sandwiches for Augusta
concealed in his pocket. The dinner, although so fruitful of results,
had seriously reduced the roll of crisp bank notes.

Strict economy was imperative during the days which followed and it
became no uncommon occurrence for Andy P. Symes to whisk Augusta into a
caravansera where the gentlemen patrons ate large, filling plates of
griddle cakes with their hats on. But such are the sordid straits to
which the proudest spirits are sometimes reduced and depressing as it
was to Andy P. Symes, who winced each time that he seated himself at the
varnished pine table upon which the pewter castor was chained to the
wall and selected a paper napkin from a glass tumbler, he consoled
himself with the thought that it would not be for long. Also it was some
little compensation to see traces of animation in Augusta's stolid face,
for the atmosphere was vastly more congenial to his wife than that of
the fashionable hotel restaurant where her appetite fled before the
waiter's observant eye and the bewildering nightmare of a menu.

Invariably upon these humiliating occasions when Symes dined cheek by
jowl with _hoi polloi_ who left their spoons in their cups and departed
using a toothpick like a peavy, his thoughts turned to his coming
triumph in Crowheart. And although his gorge rose at the sight of a
large, buck cockroach which scurried across the table and turned to wave
a fraternal leg at him before it disappeared, the knowledge that he
would soon take his rightful position as that city's leading citizen
helped to restore his equanimity.

With an assured income, Company money to spend among the local
merchants, work for many applicants, Symes felt that he could do little
else than step into the niche which clearly belonged to him. The one
smudge upon the picture was Augusta. Her eyes were ever upon him in
adoring, dog-like fidelity and it irritated him. Her appearance had
altered amazingly, she no longer called him "Mister Symes," and by
repeated corrections he had succeeded in inducing her to refrain from
folding her hands upon her abdomen, but the plebeian strain, the
deficiency of gentle birth betrayed itself in a dozen little ways, by
indelicacies none the less irritating because they were trifling.

Symes knew what a gentlewoman should be, for he had mingled with them in
the past and he never had thought of his wife as being anything else
than well born. Augusta's large knuckled hands, conspicuous in white kid
gloves, her long, flat feet, the shiny, bald spots behind her ears, were
sources of real mortification to him, and invariably he found himself
growing red upon the occasions when it was necessary to present her to
his friends.

In the presence of other women she sat bolt upright, a red spot burning
on either cheek-bone, her eyes bright with nervous excitement while she
answered the careless small talk with preternatural seriousness. At such
times Symes himself talked rapidly to hide the gaucheries of her speech,
and they were ordeals which he took care should be as few as possible.

If the yoke were chafing already, he asked himself frequently, what
would its weight be in a year, five, ten years later?




V

ANOTHER CASE IN SURGERY


Dr. Emma Harpe walked briskly into her office and, taking ten silver
dollars and some worn banknotes from the pocket of her square-cut coat,
piled them upon her office desk.

"Moses! I need that money, and," she sniggered at the recollection,
"didn't old Dubois hate to dig."

She threw the Stetson hat she now affected upon a chair, her coat upon
another, and rolling a cigarette with the skill of practice, sauntered
up and down the room.

"He's sick all right--the old guinea. Looks like typhoid. If it is,
it'll pull me out of this hole. Mileage counts up in this country at a
dollar a mile. About five cases of typhoid would put me square again and
see me through the summer; an epidemic would be a godsend. This is the
infernalest healthy country I ever saw; die in their boots or dry up and
blow off. Two cases of measles and the whooping cough in six weeks.
Dubois comes like a shower of manna, for I can't stand off the
Terriberrys forever. I'll go out and see him again in a couple of days
and give him a dose of calomel. If he pulls through the credit is mine;
if he dies, it's the will of God. Any way it goes, I'm squared. Harpe,"
she stopped and looked out of the window, "you belong to a noble
profesh--you play a safe and genteel game where you can't lose."

She watched idly as a covered wagon accompanied by two men on horseback
stopped on the vacant lot opposite the hotel which was much used as a
camping-ground by freighters and campers. It was a common enough sight
and she looked on indifferently while the team was unharnessed and the
saddle horses led toward the livery stable by one of the riders and the
driver of the wagon hastened across the street, looking, she thought, at
the sign beneath her window.

She barely had time to throw away her cigarette and fan the smoke out of
the air before the hurrying footsteps which had told her of his approach
brought the man to her office door.

"Are you the doctor?" he asked in surprise at seeing a woman.

She nodded.

"Will you come over right away? My little girl fell over the wheel and
one of the fellows that's along says her leg is broken. It only happened
a little ways back but it's beginning to swell."

The man's face was pale beneath its tan and the dust of travel, and he
plainly chafed at her deliberate movements as she took bandages from the
drawer and adjusted her hat before a mirror. It was the first practical
test of her theoretical knowledge of bone-setting and because of some
misgivings her swagger was a little more pronounced than usual when she
accompanied him across the street.

The child lay upon the bunk in the front of the wagon and her eyes were
bright with the pain of the dull ache, and fear of more that the doctor
might inflict.

"Is it hurtin' bad, Rosie?" Anxiety was in the man's voice.

"Not so very much, Daddy," she replied bravely.

"Your young'un?"

The man glanced at Dr. Harpe quickly in a mixture of surprise and
resentment.

"My sister's--young'un," he answered curtly.

The child winced as Dr. Harpe picked up the foot roughly and ran her
fingers along the bone.

"Yep; it's broken." She hesitated for an instant and added: "The job'll
cost you fifty dollars."

"Fifty dollars!" Consternation was in the man's tone. "Ain't that pretty
steep for settin' a leg?"

"That's my price." She added indifferently, "There's another sawbones
sixty miles farther on."

"You know well enough that she can't wait to get there."

"Well," she shrugged her shoulder, "dig then."

"But I haven't got it," he pleaded.

"Sell a horse."

He looked to see if she was serious; undoubtedly she was.

"How am I to go on if I sell a horse?"

"That's your lookout."

He stared at her in real curiosity.

"What kind of a doctor are you, anyhow? What kind of a woman?"

"O Daddy--it's hurtin' worse!" moaned the child.

Dr. Harpe laughed disagreeably--

"I'm not in Crowheart for my health." Ignoring the displeasure which
came into the man's eyes, she suggested: "Can't you borrow from those
fellows that came with you?"

"They're strangers. We are all strangers to each other--we only fell in
together on the road. The one lying under the wagon was on a tear in the
last town; most likely he's broke."

The child in the bunk whimpered with the increasing pain.

"How much have you got yourself?" she haggled.

"Twenty-two dollars and fifty cents; it's _all_ I've got and we're a
hundred miles yet from the end of our road. I've got work there and I'll
give you my note and send the balance as soon as I earn it."

Twenty-two dollars and fifty cents--it was more than she anticipated,
but every extra dollar was "velvet" as she phrased it.

"See what you can do with that fellow outside."

The man's dark eyes flashed and his face went blood red, but he left the
wagon abruptly, and she heard distinctly the angry explanation to his
travelling companion lying on a saddle blanket in the shade of the
wagon. The knowledge that she was forfeiting these strangers' respect
did not disturb her. These indigent campers--gone on the morrow--could
do her no harm in Crowheart where her reputation for blunt kindness and
imperturbable good nature was already established. It was something of a
luxury to indulge her hidden traits; in other words, she was enjoying
her meanness.

A forceful ejaculation told her that the slumbering débauché had revived
and grasped the situation. She listened intently to his response to the
other's request for a loan.

"So the lady doc wants money? She wants to see the color of your dust
before she can set the baby's broken leg, you say? Interesting--very. By
all means give the kind lady money. How much money does the lady want?"

The color rose swiftly in her cheeks, not so much because of the mocking
words as the intonation of the voice in which they were uttered--the
most wonderfully musical speaking voice she ever had heard. The angry
resentment of the child's foster-father had left her unmoved but this
was different. The sneering, cutting insolence came from no ordinary
person. It stung her. She thought she detected a slight foreign accent
in the carefully articulated words, though the phraseology was
distinctly western. The voice was high pitched without effeminacy, soft
yet penetrating, polished yet conveying all the meaning of an insult. No
Anglo-Saxon could express such mocking contempt by the voice alone--that
accomplishment is almost exclusively a gift of the Latins.

She was hot and uncomfortable, conscious that the blood was still in her
face, when she heard him scramble to his feet and walk to the back of
the wagon. Ever after Dr. Harpe remembered him as she saw him first
framed in the white canvas opening of the prairie schooner.

His unusually high-crowned Stetson was pushed to the back of his head,
one slender, aristocratic hand rested carelessly upon his hip, a fallen
lock of straight, black hair hung nearly to his eyebrows--eyebrows which
all but met above a pair of narrow, brilliant eyes. The aquiline nose,
the creamy, colorless complexion, the long face with its thin, slightly
drooping lips was unmistakably foreign in its type while a loose, silk
neck scarf containing the bright colors of the Roman stripe added an
alien touch. There was at once high breeding and reckless _diablerie_ in
his handsome face.

In the antagonistic moment in which they eyed each other, Dr. Harpe
endeavored to recall the something or somebody which his appearance
suggested. She groped for it in the dim gallery of youthful memories.
What was it? It flashed upon her with the suddenness of a forgotten
word. She remembered it plainly now--that treasured, highly colored
lithograph of a brigand holding up a coach in a mountain pass! There was
in this face the same mocking deviltry; his figure had the same lithe
grace; he needed only the big hoop earrings to complete the resemblance.

He removed his hat with a long, sweeping gesture and bowed in
exaggerated deference.

"At your service," he murmured.

"There was no need----" she began in a kind of apology.

"Fifty dollars is little enough to pay for the privilege of your skill,
madam. Shall it be in advance? Of course; in advance."

She threw out her hand in a gesture of protest, which he ignored.

"Permit me at least to show you that we have it here. I feel sure that
you can work with a freer mind if I count it out and lay it where you
can see it." He took an odd, foreign purse from the belt of his "chaps"
and she noted that it sagged with the weight of its contents.

"Gold," he explained; "nearly new from the Mint. You can have it tested
at the bank before you begin--acids or something of the sort, I
believe."

She crimsoned with anger, but he went on--

"Fifty dollars! What a very little sum to start the milk of human
kindness flowing!"

"I told him he needn't mind--there was no rush--just when it was
convenient. He misunderstood me." She found her tongue at last and lied
glibly.

The child's foster-father stared at her as though he doubted his own
ears. Her very audacity left him speechless.

"There you are, $50 in gold!" He flung the money into her lap. "Old
hoss," he laid his hand upon the man's shoulder while his mocking laugh
again made her cheeks tingle, "you oughtn't to lie to me like that."

When he had sauntered across the street with his careless, easy stride
and disappeared inside the swinging doors of the bar-room of the
Terriberry House, Dr. Harpe said brusquely:

"Here, you gotta help me yank this leg straight but, first, I want you
to go over to the store and bust up a thin box--something for
splints--strips off a fruit case would be best if you can get 'em."

"Haven't you splints?" the man asked in surprise.

"No; I've just come; I haven't got a stock yet and there's no drug store
in this jay town. It's on the way but that doesn't help us now. We ought
to have plaster of Paris but we haven't. Hurry up--get a move on before
it swells any more."

The man did as he was bid, with a look of doubt and uncertainty upon his
face.

He returned almost immediately with strips torn from a case of fruit.

"That's good." Dr. Harpe laid them on the bunk with the bandages. She
added shortly: "She's going to howl."

"Can't you give her anything?"

"No; I can't give ether by myself. I'm not going to take a chance like
that. If she'd die on my hands it'd queer me here on the jump. 'Twon't
kill her. She'll probably faint and then it'll be easy. When the
muscles relax, hold on to her leg above her knee while I pull."

The man's face turned a ghastly hue as the child screamed and fainted
away, nor did the color return as he watched the woman's clumsy fingers,
the bungling movements which, unlettered as he was, told him of her
inexperience--bungling movements which had not even compensating
feminine gentleness.

When the child had revived and Dr. Harpe had finished, the man went
outside and leaned against the wheel.

"Are you sure it'll be straight?"

She saw her own misgivings reflected in his face, and it exasperated
her.

"What a fool question. Do you think I don't know my business?"

He did not answer, and she turned away.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Rosie." He was at her side at once.

She lifted her clear eyes to his face.

"I don't like that woman."

"Like her!" he answered slowly. "Like her! Her heart is as black as my
hat."

To herself Dr. Harpe was saying:

"Moses! I had to start in on somebody."

It was with relief that she looked through her office window after
supper and saw that the wagon was gone from the vacant lot.

"Good riddance!" she muttered. "I wouldn't have that black-eyed devil
hanging around this town for money. He's onery enought to do me
mischief. I wonder who he was? He might be anything or anybody; a dago
duke or a hold-up--or both. Anyway, he's gone, and if I never see him
again it'll be soon enough."

She sat down in her office chair and rested her heels on the window sill
while her cigarette burned to ashes between her listless fingers. For a
time she watched the white light of the June moon grow on the line of
dimpled foothills, the myriad odors of spring were in the air and the
balmy west wind lifted the hair at her temples as it came through the
open window. She felt lonely--inexpressibly lonely. She thought of Alice
Freoff and restlessness grew. Downstairs she heard Essie Tisdale's merry
laughter and it changed the current of her thoughts.

She had learned her story now and the mystery of her identity had given
the little belle of Crowheart an added attraction. Everybody in
Crowheart knew her story for that matter; it was one of the stock tales
of the country to be repeated to interest strangers.

In the old days when Crowheart was a blacksmith shop and the stamping
ground of "Snow-shoe" Brown, whose log cabin hung on the edge of the
bench overlooking the stream like a crow's nest in a cottonwood tree,
"Snow-shoe" Brown had yelled in vain, one spring day, at a man and woman
on the seat of a covered wagon who were preparing to ford the stream at
the usual crossing. But the sullen roar of the water drowned his warning
that it was swimming depth, and, even while he ran for his horse and
uncoiled his saddle rope, the current was sweeping the wagon and the
struggling horses down stream. He followed along the bank until the
horse's feet came up and the wagon went down, while there floated from
the open end, among other things, something that looked to his
astonished eyes like a wooden cradle. He threw his rope, and threw
again, with the skill which long practice in roping mavericks had given
him; and gently, gently, with a success which seemed miraculous even to
"Snow-shoe" Brown, he had drawn the bobbing cradle gradually to shore.
Inside, a baby smiled up at him with the bluest eyes he ever had seen.
There was a picture primer tucked beneath the flannel coverlet and it
contained the single clue to her identity. "Esther Tisdale" was written
on the fly-leaf with a recent date.

"Snow-shoe" Brown said she was a maverick and unblushingly declared that
he claimed all mavericks that he had had his rope on; therefore "Esther
Tisdale" belonged to him. He left her in the care of the wife of a
cattleman who hoped thereby to purchase immunity from "Snow-shoe's"
activities, which he did, though that person rustled elsewhere with
renewed energy, since he said he had a family to keep. So she learned to
ride and shoot as straight as "Snow-shoe" himself and even as a child
gave promise of a winsome, lovely girlhood. The unique relationship
ended when her guardian died in his boots in the little cowtown over
beyond the Limestone Rim. A hard winter and the inroads of sheep "broke"
the cattleman who sold out and moved away, while Esther Tisdale shifted
for herself that she might not be a burden. She was nearly twenty now,
and, in the democratic community never had felt or been made to feel
that her position was subservient or inferior. Therefore when her work
was done and she bounded up the stairs to Dr. Harpe's door she felt sure
of a welcome.

"It's only Essie Tisdale," she said in her merry voice as she rapped and
peered into the room.

"Come in, Essie; I'm lonesome as the deuce!"

It was some time later that Mrs. Terriberry sailing through the corridor
in her dressing-sacque and petticoat, with her feet scuffling in Mr.
Terriberry's carpet-slippers, had the stone-china water-pitcher dashed
from her hand as she turned a corner.

"Why, Essie!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Terriberry!"

"What's the matter?" She looked wonderingly at the girl's crimson face.

"Don't ask me! but don't expect me to be friends with that woman again!"

"Have you had words--have you quarrelled with Dr. Harpe?"

"Yes--yes; we quarrelled! But don't ask me any more! I won't--I can't
tell you!" the girl replied fiercely as she rushed on and slammed the
door of her room behind her.

In her office, Dr. Harpe was sitting by the window panic-stricken, sick
with the fear of the one thing in the world of which she was most
afraid, namely, Public Opinion.

She was deaf to the night sounds of the town; to the thick,
argumentative voices beneath her window; to the scratched phonograph
squeaking an ancient air in the office of the Terriberry House; to the
banging of an erratic piano in the saloon two doors above; to the sleepy
wails of the butcher's urchin in the tar-paper shack one door below, and
to a heap of snarling dogs fighting in the deep, white dust of the
street.

She glanced through the window and saw without seeing, the
deputy-sheriff escorting an unsteady prisoner down the street followed
by a boisterous crowd. In a way she was dimly conscious that there was
something familiar in the prisoner's appearance, but the impression was
not strong enough to rouse her from her preoccupation, and she turned to
walk the floor without being cognizant of the fact that she was walking.

She suddenly threw both hands aloft.

"I've got it!" she cried exultingly. "The very thing to counteract her
story. It'll work--it always does--and I know that I can do it!"

In her relief she laughed, a queer, cackling laugh which came strangely
from the lips of a woman barely thirty. The laughter was still on her
lips when a sound reached her ears which killed it as quickly as it
came.

    Addio mia bella Napoli, addio, addio!
    La tua soave imagine chi mai, chi mai scordar potra!
    Del ciel l'auzzurro fulgido, la placida marina,
    Qual core non imebria, non bea non bea divolutta!
    In tela terra el 'aura favellano d'amore;
    Te sola al mio dolore conforto io sognero
    Oh! addio mia bella Napoli, addio, addio!
    Addio care memorie del tempo ah! che fuggi!

The voice rang out like a golden bell, vibrating, as sweetly
penetrating. The strange words fell like the notes of the meadow lark in
spring, easy, liquid, yet with the sureness of knowledge.

The incoherent argument beneath the window ceased, the piano and the
phonograph were silenced, the wailing urchin dried its tears and all the
raw little town of Crowheart seemed to hold its breath as the wonderful
tenor voice rose and fell on the soft June night.

    Adieu, my own dear Napoli! Adieu to thee, Adieu to thee!
    Thy wondrous pictures in the sea, will ever fill my memory!
    Thy skies of deepest, brightest blue, thy placid waves so soft and clear;
    With heaving sigh and bitter tear, I bid a last, a sad adieu!
    Adieu the fragrant orange grove, the scented air that breathes of love
    Shall charm my heart with one bright ray, in dreams, wher'er I stray;
    Oh, adieu, my own dear Napoli! Adieu to thee, Adieu to thee!
    Adieu each soul-felt memory, of happy days long passed away!

The old street-song of Italy, the song of its people, never held a
stranger audience in thraldom. If the song had been without words the
result would have been the same, almost, for it was the voice which
reached through liquor befuddled brains to find and stir remote and
hidden recesses in natures long since hardened to sentiment. Rough
speeches, ribald words and oaths died on the lips of those who crowded
the doorway of saloons, and they stood spell-bound by the song which was
sung as they felt dimly the angels must sing up there in that shadowy
land back of the stars in which vaguely they believed.

Only those who have lived in isolated places can understand what music
means to those who year after year are without it. Any sound that is not
an actual discord becomes music then and the least gentle listen with
pathetic eagerness. A worn phonograph screeching the popular songs of a
past decade holds the rapt attention of such. It reminds them of that
world they left long ago, a world which in the perspective of waning
years looks all song and laughter, good company, good clothes, good
food, and green things everywhere.

Therefore it is little wonder that this voice of marvellous sweetness
and power rising unexpectedly out of the moonlit night should lay an
awed hush upon the music-starved town. To some it brought a flood of
memories and lumps in aching throats while many a weather-beaten face
was lifted from mediocrity by a momentary exultation that was of the
soul.

That a human voice unaided by a visible personality could throw such a
spell upon the listeners seems rather a tax upon credulity; but the
singer himself appeared to have no misgivings. His face wore a look of
smiling, mocking confidence as he stood with one hand on his hip, the
other grasping a bar of the iron grating which covered the single window
of Crowheart's calaboose, pouring forth the golden notes with an
occasional imperious toss of his head and a flash of his black eyes
which made him look like a royal prisoner.

When the last note had died away, Dr. Harpe breathed an ejaculation.

"The Dago Duke!"

"He sings like an angel," said "Slivers," a barkeep.

"And fights like a devil," replied Dan Treu, the deputy-sheriff. "He
turned a knife in Tinhorn's shoulder."




VI

"THE CHURCH RACKET"


Dr. Harpe went downstairs the next morning with her straight upper lip
stretched in the set smile with which she met a crisis. "Hank"
Terriberry passed through the hall as she descended the stairs and she
watched him breathlessly.

"Mornin', Doc." He nodded in friendly nonchalance and her heart leaped
in relief.

He knew nothing of the quarrel!

"Wait a minute, Mr. Terriberry," she called, and he stopped. "Say, what
church do you belong to? What are you?"

Mr. Terriberry suffered from pyorrhea, and the row of upper teeth which
he now displayed in a genial grin looked like a garden-rake, due to his
shrinking gums.

"I'm a Presbyterian, Doc, but I don't work at it. Why?"

"Let's get together and build a church. I'll go around with a
subscription paper myself and raise the money. I feel lost without a
church, I honestly do. It's downright heathenish."

"That's so," Mr. Terriberry agreed heartily, "there's something damned
respectable about a church. It makes a good impression upon strangers to
come into a town and hear a church bell ringin', even if nobody goes.
Doc, you're all right," he patted her shoulder approvingly; "you're a
rough diamond; you can put me down for $50."

When Mr. Terriberry had gone his pious way, Dr. Harpe smiled and
reiterated mentally: "There's nothing like the church racket; it always
works."

She passed on into the dining-room where the Dago Duke who had sung
himself out of the calaboose sprang to his feet and, laying his hand
upon his heart, bowed low in a burlesqued bow of deference.

"A tribute to your skill and learning, madam."

She stared at him stonily and his white teeth flashed.

How she hated him! yet she felt helpless before his impudence and
audacity. He had "presence," poise, and she knew instinctively that to
whatever lengths she might go in retaliation he would go further. She
would only bring upon herself discomfiture by such a course. She knew
that she had forfeited his respect; more than that, she felt that she
had incurred a deep and lasting enmity which seemed to her out of all
proportion to the cause.

His horseback companion of the previous day was breakfasting beside him
and she found the young man's cold, impersonal scrutiny as hard to bear
as the Dago Duke's frank impudence as she swaggered to her seat at the
end of the long dining-room and faced them. He was as different in his
way from the men about him as the Dago Duke, yet he differed, too, from
that conspicuous person. He seemed self-contained, reserved to the point
of reticence, but with a quiet assurance of manner as pronounced as the
other's effrontery. He was dressed in a blue flannel shirt and worn
corduroys. His face was tanned but it was the sunburned face of an
invalid. There were hollows in his cheeks and a tired look in his gray
eyes. Having critically examined her, Dr. Harpe observed that he seemed
to forget her.

Essie Tisdale passed her without a glance, but Mrs. Terriberry came
behind with the breakfast of fried potatoes and the thin, fried
beefsteak on the platter which served also as a plate, from which menu
the Terriberry House never deviated by so much as a mutton chop.

"I'm sorry you and Essie fell out," said Mrs. Terriberry apologetically
as she placed the dishes before her. "But she seems awful set on not
waitin' on you."

Dr. Harpe dropped her eyes for an instant.

"It's up to her."

"She's as good-natured as anybody I ever saw but she's high-strung, too;
she's got a temper."

Dr. Harpe lifted a shoulder.

"She'd better have my friendship than my enmity, even if she has a
temper."

"Essie's mighty well liked here," Mrs. Terriberry returned quickly.

"Popularity is a mighty uncertain asset in a small town."

"Don't forget that yourself, Doc," returned Mrs. Terriberry, nettled by
her tone.

Dr. Harpe laughed good-naturedly; she had no desire to antagonize Mrs.
Terriberry.

She watched the Dago Duke hold up a warning finger as Essie placed the
heavy hotel dishes before him.

"Be careful, Miss, be very careful not to nick this fragile ware. As a
lover of ceramic art, it would pain me to see it injured."

The girl dimpled, and, in spite of herself, burst into a trill of
laughter which was so merry and contagious that the grave stranger
beside him looked up at her with an interested and amused smile as
though seeing her for the first time.

"Breakfasting at the Terriberry House was a pleasure which seemed a long
way off last night," observed the Dago Duke without embarrassment. "You
heard the imprisoned bird singing for his liberty? Music to soothe the
savage breast of your sheriff. When I am myself I can converse in five
languages; when I am drunk it is my misfortune to be able only to sing
or holler. Your jail is a disgrace to Crowheart; I've never been in a
worse one. The mattress is lumpy and the pillow hard; I was voicing my
protest."

"I don't care why you sing so long as you sing," said Essie, dimpling
again. "It was beautiful, but isn't it bad for your health to get
so--drunk?"

"Not at all," returned the Dago Duke airily. "Look at me--fresh as a
rock-rose with the dew on it!"

Again the grave stranger smiled but rather at Essie Tisdale's laughter
than his companion's brazen humor.

He interested Dr. Harpe, this other stranger, and as soon as her
breakfast was finished she looked for his name upon the register.

"Ogden Van Lennop," she read, and his address was a little town in the
county. She shook her head and said to herself: "He never came from this
neck of the woods. Another black sheep, I wonder?"

Dr. Harpe lost no time in agitating the subject of a church and it
tickled Crowheart's risibilities, since she was the last person to be
suspected of spiritual yearnings--her personality seeming incongruous
with religious fervor. But while they laughed it was with good-nature
and approval for it merely confirmed them in their opinion that with all
her idiosyncrasies she was at heart what she liked to be considered, "a
rough diamond," sympathetic and kind of heart underneath her blunt
candor. That she had never been known to refuse a drink to the knowledge
of any inhabitant was one of the stock jokes of the town, yet it was
never urged against her. Already she had come to be pointed out to
strangers with a kind of affectionate pride as a local celebrity--a
"character." She had a strong attraction for the women of Crowheart--an
attraction that amounted to fascination. Her stronger personality
overshadowed theirs as her stronger will dominated them. She quickly
became a leader among them, and her leadership aroused no jealousy. They
quoted her rude speeches as characteristic bits of wit and laughed at
her uncouth manners. Her callousness passed for the confidence of
knowledge.

"She's so different," they told each other. "She's a law unto herself."
Yet the most timid among them had less fear of Public Opinion than Dr.
Harpe to whom it was always a menacing juggernaut.

She returned at the end of the day tired but content in the knowledge
that her efforts had produced exactly the effect she desired. She had
raised enough money to insure the erection of a modest mission church,
but the important thing was that in so doing she had built a stout
bulwark about herself which would long withstand any explanation that
Essie Tisdale might make as to the cause of the mysterious break between
them.

While she congratulated herself upon the success of this inspired move
on her part, circumstances due to other than her own efforts were
conspiring to eliminate the girl as a dangerous factor in her life.

She retired early and, consequently, was in ignorance of the receipt of
a telegram by Sylvanus Starr announcing the return of Andy P. Symes and
the complete success of his eastern mission. So when she was awakened
the next morning by a conflict of sounds which resembled the efforts of
a Chinese orchestra and raised the shade to see the newly organized
Cowboy band making superhuman endeavors to march and yet produce a
sufficiently correct number of notes from the score of "A Hot Time in
the Old Town" to make that American warcry recognizable, she knew that
something unusual had developed in the interim of her long sleep.

It was like Andy P. Symes to announce his coming that he might extract
all the glory possible from his arrival and he knew that he could depend
upon Sylvanus Starr to make the most of the occasion.

The editor issued an "Extra" of dodger-like appearance, and it is
doubtful if he would have used larger type to announce an anticipated
visit of the President. He called upon every citizen with a spark of
civic pride to turn out and give Andy P. Symes a fitting welcome; to do
homage to the man who was to Crowheart what the patron saints are to the
cities of the Old World.

The matutinal "Hot Time in the Old Town" and a majority of the
population waiting on the cinders about the red water tank were the
results of his impassioned plea.

Tears of gratified vanity stood in the eyes of Andy P. Symes as from the
front platform of the passenger coach he saw his neighbors assembled to
greet him. It seemed an eminently fitting and proper tribute to the
great-grandson of the man who had been a personal friend of Alexander
Hamilton's. He viewed the welcoming throng through misty eyes as, with
an entire appreciation of the imposing figure he presented, he bared his
massive head in deference to Mrs. Terriberry, Mrs. Percy Parrott, Mrs.
Starr and her two lovely daughters whose shrill shrieks were audible
above the grinding of the car-wheels upon the rusty track.

Sylvanus Starr with many sweeping gestures of a hand which suggested a
prehensile, well-inked claw, welcomed him in an outburst of oratory,
iridescent with adjectives which gushed from him like a volume of water
from a fire-plug, that made Crowheart's jaw drop. While Symes may have
felt that the editor was going it rather strong when he compared him to
the financial geniuses of the world beginning with Croesus and
ending with the Guggenheims, he made no protest.

Behind Mr. Symes, wide-eyed and solemn, and transformed nearly past
recognition by a hobble skirt and "kimona" sleeves, stood Mrs. Symes
with the growing feeling of complacent aloofness which comes from being
the wife of a great man.

In contrast to Sylvanus Starr's fluency Symes's response seemed halting
and slow, but it gained thereby in impressiveness. When he clenched his
huge fist and struck at the air, declaring for the third time that "it
was good to be home!" nobody doubted him. And they need not have doubted
him, for, since his salary did not begin until his return to Crowheart,
and the offerings of night-lunch carts are taxing upon the digestion, it
was indeed "good to be home!"




VII

THE SHEEP FROM THE GOATS


Andy P. Symes decided to emphasize further his return to Crowheart by
issuing invitations for a dinner to be given in the Terriberry House,
reserving the announcement of his future plans for this occasion; and,
although Crowheart did not realize it at the time, this dinner was an
epoch-making function. It was not until the printed invitations worded
with such elegance by Sylvanus Starr were issued, that Crowheart dimly
suspected there were sheep and goats, and this was the initial step
toward separating them.

The making up of a social list in any frontier town is not without its
puzzling features and Mr. Symes in this instance found it particularly
difficult once he began to discriminate.

First there came the awkward question of his relatives by marriage. At
first glance it would have seemed rather necessary to head the list with
Grandmother Kunkel, but the fact that she was also the hotel laundress
at the time made it a subject for debate. Once, just once, he was
willing to test the social possibilities of his brother-in-law, so Symes
magnanimously gave him his chance and the name of Adolph Kunkel headed
the list.

The Percy Parrotts, of course, went through the sieve, and the Starrs,
and Dr. Emma Harpe, but there was the embarrassing question of Mrs. Alva
Jackson who had but lately sold her dance hall, goodwill, and fixtures,
to marry Alva Jackson, a prosperous cattleman--too prosperous, Mr. Symes
finally decided, to ignore. Would the presence of the sprightly Faro
Nell give a touch of piquancy to the occasion or lower its tone? Could
rich, old Edouard Dubois be induced to change his shirt if invited? The
clairvoyant milliner was barred owing to the fact that she was "in
trade," but "Tinhorn Frank," who no longer sat drunk and collarless in
his dirt-floored saloon fumbling a deck of cards thick with grime, went
down upon the list as "Mr. Rhodes," the citizens of Crowheart learning
his name for the first time when it appeared on the sign above the door
of his new real estate office.

When the difficult undertaking was complete Mrs. Symes looked over his
shoulder and read the list.

"You haven't Essie Tisdale's name."

Mr. Symes laughed good-humoredly--

"Oh, she'll be there; she'll wait on the table."

"You don't mean to ask Essie Tisdale?" Mrs. Symes's eyes opened.

Symes shook his head.

"That seems awfully mean," insisted Mrs. Symes in feeble protest; "she's
always been so nice to me at dances and things."

"My dear," Symes replied impatiently, "we can't invite all the people
who have been nice to us. Won't you ever understand that society must
draw the line somewhere?"

Mrs. Symes pondered this new thought a long time.

When the invitations were out and the news of the dinner spread it
became the chief topic of conversation. The fact that the dinner was at
seven instead of twelve o'clock, noon, occasioned much hilarity among
the uninvited while the invited guests were more than delighted at the
fashionable hour. A tinge of acerbity was noticeable in the comments of
those who were unaccustomed to the sensation of being excluded, among
them Mrs. Abe Tutts, whose quick recognition of slights led one to
believe she had received a great many of them. Mrs. Tutts, who was
personally distasteful to Mr. Symes, went so far as to inquire
belligerently of Mrs. Symes why she had not been invited.

"I don't know," stammered Mrs. Symes who was still truthful rather than
tactful, "but I'll ask Phidias."

"You find out and lemme know," said Mrs. Tutts menacingly. "They can't
nobody in this town hand _me_ nothin'!"

Since Mrs. Tutts's sensitiveness appeared always to show itself in a
desire to do the offender bodily harm, Andy P. Symes took care not to
commit himself.

Until the very last Essie Tisdale could not believe that she had been
intentionally omitted. She was among the first thought of when any
gathering was planned and in her naive way was as sure of her popularity
as Symes himself, so she had pressed the wrinkles from her simple gown
and cleaned once more the white slippers which were among her dearest
treasures.

As a matter of course Mrs. Terriberry had engaged other help for the
occasion and all the afternoon of the day set Essie Tisdale waited for
the tardy invitation which she told herself was an oversight. She could
not believe that Augusta Kunkel, who was indebted to her for more good
times than she ever had had in her uneventful life, could find it in her
heart to slight her.

But the afternoon waned and no belated invitation came, so when the hour
had arrived for her to go below she hung her cheap little frock upon
its nail and replaced the cherished slippers in their box, hurt and
heavy hearted and still unaware that the day when she had tripped in
them as the acknowledged belle of Crowheart was done and the old régime
of charity and democratic, unpretentious hospitality was gone never to
return.

Her shapely head was erect and her eyes bright with the pain of hurt
pride when she knocked upon Mrs. Terriberry's door. That lady thrust a
floured face through the crack.

"You needn't get anyone to take my place to-night," she said bravely,
"I'm not invited."

"What!"

In the white expanse Mrs. Terriberry's mouth looked like a crack in a
glacier.

Essie Tisdale shook her head.

"Come in." Mrs. Terriberry sank upon the bed which sagged like a hammock
with her weight. "What do you 'spose is the reason?"

"I haven't the least idea in the world." Essie's chin quivered in spite
of her.

"For half a cent I wouldn't budge!" Mrs. Terriberry shook a warlike
coiffure. "Folks like that ought to be learned something."

"Oh, yes, you must go."

"If I do it'll be only to see what they wear and how they act; I don't
expect to enjoy myself a bit after hearin' this. I've lost interest in
it."

With a zest somewhat at variance with her words Mrs. Terriberry began to
manipulate a pair of curling tongs which had been heating in the lamp.

A sizzling sound followed and a cloud of smoke rose in the air.

"There! I've burnt off my scoldin' locks." Mrs. Terriberry viewed the
damage with dismay. "I'm just so upset I don't know what I'm doin'.
Essie, if you don't want to wait on 'em you needn't."

"I won't mind much--after the first. It will be hard at first. Thank
you, though."

"If I ever git me another pair of these 'pinch-ins'," panted Mrs.
Terriberry, "you'll know it. Take holt and lay back on them strings,
will you? They got to come closter than that or that skirt won't meet on
me by an inch--and to think twenty-fours was loose on me onct! Wait a
minute!" A startled look came in Mrs. Terriberry's bulging eyes. "I
thought I felt somethin' give inside of me--don't take much to cave a
rib in sometimes."

"More?"

"Yep; these things have gotta meet if I have to hitch the 'bus team onto
'em."

When she was finally encased in a steel-colored satin bodice her plump
shoulders appeared to start directly beneath her ears, and her hands
were not only purple, but slightly numb.

"How do I look, child?"

"How do you feel?" asked Essie evasively.

"As well as anybody could with their in'ards crowded up under their
chin," replied Mrs. Terriberry grimly. "I hope the house don't ketch
fire while we're eatin', for I sure aims to slide these slippers off
onct we're set down, and there's one thing certain," Mrs. Terriberry
continued savagely, "I'm sufferin' enough to git some good out of it."

As Essie turned away Mrs. Terriberry kissed her cheek kindly.

"Keep a stiff upper lip, Essie, don't let them see."

"I can do that," the girl replied proudly.

Innovations are nearly always attended by difficulties and
embarrassments but even Andy P. Symes had not anticipated that his
effort to establish a local aristocracy would entail so many awkward
moments and painful situations.

If the printed invitations and the unusual hour had filled his guests
with awe, the formalities of the dinner itself had the effect of
temporarily paralyzing their faculties. In lieu of the merry scramble
characteristic of Crowheart's festivities, there was a kind of a Death
March into the dining-room from which Mrs. Terriberry had
unceremoniously "fanned" the regular boarders.

The procession was headed by Andy P. Symes bearing Mrs. Starr, tittering
hysterically, upon his arm. Mrs. Symes's newly acquired _savoir-faire_
deserted her; her hands grew clammy and Sylvanus Starr's desperate
conversational efforts evoked no other response than "Yes, sir--No,
sir." Mrs. Terriberry, red and flustered, found herself engaged in a
wrestling match with little Alva Jackson, which lasted all the way from
the door of the dining-room to the long table at the end. Mr. Jackson in
his panic was determined to take Mrs. Terriberry's arm, whereas she was
equally determined that she would take his, having furtively observed
her host gallantly offering support to Mrs. Starr.

A sure indication of the importance attached to the affair was the
number of new boots and shoes purchased for the occasion. Now,
thick-soled, lustrous, in the frozen silence of the procession, these
boots and shoes clumping across the bare floor called attention to
themselves in voices which seemed to shriek and with the fiendishness
of inanimate objects screamed the louder at their owners' gingerly
steps. A function of the Commune when Madame Guillotine presided must
have been a frothy and frivolous affair compared to the beginning of
this dinner.

Adolph Kunkel, who had attached himself to Dr. Harpe to the extent of
walking within four feet of her side, darted from line and pulled out
the nearest chair at the table. Observing too late that the other guests
were still standing, he sprang to his feet and looked wildly about to
see if he had been noticed. He had. Alva Jackson covered his mouth with
his handkerchief and giggled.

There was a frozen smile upon the faces of the ladies who, sitting bolt
upright, twisted their fingers under the kindly shelter of the
table-cloth. Each trivial observation, humorous or otherwise, was
greeted with a burst of laughter and the person brave enough to venture
a remark seemed immediately appalled by the sound of his own voice.
Adolph Kunkel, to show that he was perfectly at ease, stretched his arms
behind his neighbor's chair and yawned.

In spite of the efforts which brought beads of perspiration out on the
broad forehead of their host, Essie Tisdale appeared with the first
course mid a ghastly silence.

"I hardly ever drink tea," observed Mr. Rhodes, for the purpose, merely,
of making conversation.

"Oh, my Gawd, Tinhorn, that ain't tea, it's bullion!" Mrs. Terriberry's
loud whisper was heard the length of the table as she tore the sugar
bowl from his hand, but the warning came too late, for Mr. Rhodes
already had sweetened his consommé.

The guests displayed their tact by assuming a wooden expression, and
turning their heads away secretly relieved that they had not committed
the _faux pas_ themselves. Only Alva Jackson stared at Mr. Rhodes's
embarrassment in unconcealed delight.

"Let Essie bring you another cup," suggested Mr. Symes.

"Oh, no! not at all; I take sweetenin' in everything," declared Mr.
Rhodes.

There was a distinct relaxation of tension all around when Andy P. Symes
took the initiative in the matter of spoons.

"This here soup makes me think of the time I had mountain fever and et
it stiddy for three weeks." Adolph Kunkel whispered the reminiscence
behind the back of his hand.

"My real favorite is bean soup," admitted Mr. Terriberry, and Mrs.
Terriberry looked mortified at this confession of her husband's vulgar
preferences.

"It's very nourishing," declared Mrs. Starr tremulously.

"And delicious, too, when properly served." Mrs. Percy Parrott curled
her little finger elegantly and toyed with a spoon.

"It's a pretty good article in camp," said Mr. Symes desperately to keep
the ball rolling.

The guests shrieked with mirthless laughter at the suggestion of rough
camp life.

"Gosh! me and Gus was weaned and raised on bean soup--and liverwurst,"
interjected Adolph Kunkel in the lull which followed, and immediately
squirmed under Mrs. Symes's blazing eyes. "Of course," he added lamely,
"we et other things, too--mush and headcheese."

During these trying moments Dr. Harpe settled back in her chair with
folded arms regarding the scene with the impersonal amusement with which
she would have sat through a staged comedy. No sense of obligation
toward her host and hostess impelled her to do her share toward
lessening the strain, and Andy P. Symes felt a growing irritation at the
faint smile of superiority upon her face. She was the one person present
who might have helped him through the uncomfortable affair.

Formality was the keynote of the occasion. Ladies who had been at each
other's back door a few hours previous borrowing starch or sugar now
addressed each other in strained and distant tones while the men were
frankly dumb. It was a relief to everybody when a heaping platter of
fried chicken appeared upon the table followed by mounds of mashed
potatoes and giblet gravy which made the guests' eyes gleam like
bird-dogs gaunt from a run.

Fried chicken is only fried chicken to those who dwell in the country
where chickens scratch in every backyard, but to those who dwell where
they reckon time from the occasion when they last ate an egg, fried
chicken bears the same relation to other food that nightingales' tongues
bore to other dishes at epicurean Roman feasts. As a further evidence of
Symes's prodigality there was champagne in hollow-stemmed glasses
brought from the East.

It was a glorious feast with cold storage chicken expressed from the
Main Line and potatoes freighted up from the Mormon settlement a hundred
miles below.

"It's a durn shame," said Adolph Kunkel as he surreptitiously removed an
olive, "that the plums is spiled, for this is the best supper I ever
flopped my lip over."

Symes suppressed a groan.

Each guest devoted himself to his food with an abandon and singleness of
purpose which left no doubt as to his enjoyment, and the effort of old
Edouard Dubois to scrape the last vestige of potato from his plate
brought out a suggestion from Adolph Kunkel to leave the gilt design on
the bottom. And when tiny after-dinner coffee cups appeared, the guests
felt that a new and valuable experience was being added to their lives.

"Holy smoke--but that's stout!" hinted Mr. Terriberry after looking the
table over for the customary pitcher of tinned milk. But before Mr.
Symes could act upon the hint his brother-in-law's eyes began to water
and bulge. He groped for his napkin while he compressed his lips in an
heroic effort to retain the hot and bitter coffee, but instead he
grabbed the hanging edge of the table-cloth. His pitiful eyes were fixed
upon the coldly disapproving face of Andy P. Symes, but there is a limit
to human endurance and Adolph Kunkel quickly reached it. Simultaneous
with a spurt of coffee Adolph rose and fled, upsetting his chair as he
went, disgraced upon his only appearance in that exclusive set from
which he was henceforth and forever barred.

He coughed significantly under the window to remind Mr. Symes that he
might be induced to return, but the hint passed unheeded, for regret
would not have been among Mr. Symes's emotions if his brother-in-law's
removal had been complete and permanent.

Over the coffee and a superior brand of cigars to which Mr. Symes called
particular attention, the conversation of his guests began to contain
some degree of naturalness and their painful self-consciousness
gradually vanished. When they seemed in a mellow and receptive mood he
began to rehearse his achievements in the East and unfold his plans. As
he talked, their imaginations stimulated by wine, they saw the future of
Crowheart pass before them like a panorama.

The army of laborers who were to be employed upon this enormous ditch
would spend their wages in Crowheart. The huge payroll would be a
benefit to every citizen. The price of horses would jump to war-time
values and every onery cayuse on the range would be hauling a scraper.
Alfalfa and timothy would sell for $18 a ton in the stack and there
would be work for every able-bodied man who applied. The grocery bills
of the commissary would make the grocers rich and Crowheart would boom
_right_. When the water was running swift and deep in the ditch the
land-hungry homeseekers would fight for ground. And it was only a step
from settlement to trolley cars, electric lights, sandstone business
blocks and cement pavements, together with lawns growing real grass!
Under the spell of his magnetic presence and convincing eloquence
nothing seemed more plausible or possible than the fulfilment of these
prophecies. And all this was to be brought about through the efforts of
Andy P. Symes, who intimated that not one million but millions had been
placed at his disposal by eager and trusting capitalists to be used by
him if necessary in making the desert bloom like the rose.

Mr. Rhodes saw himself selling corner lots at twenty thousand each while
space rates rose in the mind of Sylvanus Starr in leaps and bounds. The
Percy Parrots saw themselves lolling in a rubber-tired vehicle while the
vulgar populace on the curb identified them by pointing with their grimy
fingers. Each guest looked forward to the fulfilment of some cherished
dream and Dr. Emma Harpe saw a picture, too, as she gazed at Symes with
speculative, contemplative eyes.

He looked the embodiment of prosperity and success, did Symes, and if he
subtly intimated that the road to prosperity lay through loyalty to him,
that his friendship, support and approval were the steps by which they
could best climb, they were willing to give it without quibbling. They
were content to shine in his reflected glory, and they dispersed at a
late hour feeling that they had been tacitly set apart--a chosen people.

The next issue of the Crowheart _Courier_ referred to the dinner as a
three-course banquet, and published the menu. If the description of the
guests' costumes made Crowheart's eyes pop and none more than the
wearers, the latter did not mention it.

Pleased but bewildered, Mrs. Terriberry read of herself as "queenly in
gray satin and diamonds," being unable to place the diamonds until she
recalled the rhinestone comb in her back hair which sparkled with the
doubtful brilliancy of a row of alum cubes.

Mrs. Percy Parrott had some difficulty in recognizing herself as
"ravishing in shot silk garnished with pearls," since the plaid taffeta
which had come in a barrel from home with the collar tab pinned flat
with a moonstone pin bore little resemblance to the elegance suggested
in the paragraph.

And if the editor chose to refer to the pineapple pattern, No. 60
cotton, collarette which Mrs. Jackson had crocheted between beers in
the good old Dance Hall days as an "exquisite effect in point lace,"
certainly Mrs. Jackson was not the lady to contradict him.

But this was merely the warming up exercise of the editor's vocabulary.
When he really cut loose on Andy P. Symes the graves of dead and buried
adjectives opened to do him honor. In the lurid lexicon of his eloquence
there was no such word as obsolete and no known synonym failed to pay
tribute to this "mental and physical colossus." In his shirt sleeves,
minus his cuffs, with his brain in a lather, one might say, Sylvanus
Starr painted a picture of the coming Utopia, experiencing in so doing
such joys of creation as he had not known since his removal from the
obituary department.

And reading, the citizens of Crowheart rejoiced or envied according to
their individual natures.




VIII

"THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME"


Dr. Harpe was still young enough to be piqued by Ogden Van Lennop's
utter indifference to herself. He was now established in the hotel,
apparently for an indefinite stay, and they met frequently in the
corridors and on the stairs. His attitude of impassive politeness
nettled her far more than the alert hostility of the Dago Duke whom she
saw occasionally.

The slight overtures she made met no response and she minded it the more
that he made no attempt to disguise his liking for Essie Tisdale, whose
laughing good-nature and quaint humor had penetrated the reserve which
was in his manner toward every one else. He seemed even to have no
desire to take advantage of the patroni