"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 debauche 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."