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.