Have heard nothing from you. Am anxious. Is all well with you?
Telegraph answer to address given in letter.
Dr. Harpe tore the telegram in bits and watched the pieces flutter into
the waste-basket.
"The Old Boy certainly looks after his own, Harpe," she murmured, but
her fingertips were cold with nervousness.
Dr. Harpe had paid her professional visit and her horses were dragging
the buggy through the deep sand in the direction of Dubois's
sheep-ranch, where she contemplated staying for supper and driving home
in the cooler evening. The small matter of being unwelcome never
deterred Dr. Harpe when she was hungry and could save expense.
There was no one in sight nor human habitation within her range of
vision; the slow drag was monotonous; the flies were bad and the heat
was great; she was both drowsy and irritable.
"Lord! how I hate the smell of sheep!" she said fretfully as the odor
rose strong from a bedding-ground, "and their everlastin' bleat would
set me crazy. Gosh! it's hot! Wonder how she'll enjoy spending her
honeymoon about forty feet from Dubois's shearing-pens," she sniggered.
"Well, no matter what comes up in the future, I've settled _her_; she's
out of the way for good and all, and I've kept my word--she'll never
marry Ogden Van Lennop!"
Yet she was aware that there was hollowness in her triumph--that it was
marred by a nameless fear which she refused to admit. Van Lennop was
still to be reckoned with. His telegram had reminded her forcibly of
that.
The muffled sound of galloping hoofs in the sand caused her to raise her
chin from her chest and her mind became instantly alert. It would be a
relief to exchange a word with some one, she thought, and wondered
vaguely at the swiftness of the gait upon so hot a day. She could hear
the labored breathing of the horses now and suddenly two riders flashed
into sight around the curve of the hill. Instantly they pulled their
horses on their haunches and swung them with rein and spur into the deep
washout in the gulch where the giant sagebrush hid them.
It was so quickly done that Dr. Harpe had only a glimpse of flashing
eyes, swarthy skins, and close-cropped, coal-black hair, but the glimpse
was sufficient to cause her to say to herself--
"Breeds--and a long way from the home range," she added musingly. "Looks
like a getaway--what honest men would be smokin' up their horses in heat
like this?"
A barking sheep-dog ran up the road to greet her when, after another
hour of plodding, she finally reached the ridge where she could look
down upon the alkali flat where Dubois had built his shearing-pens, his
log store house and his cabin of one room.
"No smoke. Darned inhospitable, I say, when it's near supper time and
company comin'."
There was no sign of life anywhere save the sheep-dog leaping at her
buggy wheels.
"Can it be the turtle-doves don't know it's time to eat?" she sneered.
"Get ep!"
The grating of the wheels against the brake as she drove down the steep
pitch brought no one around the corner of the house, which faced the
trickling stream that made the ranch a valuable one.
They were somewhere about, she was sure of that, for she had recognized
gray horses feeding some distance away and the sheep-wagon in which they
had left town was drawn up close to the house. She tied her fagged team
to the shearing-pens and sauntered toward the house, but with something
of uncertainty in her face. There was a chance that she had been seen
and the new Mrs. Dubois did not mean to receive her.
A faint, quavering moan stopped her at the corner of the house. She
listened. It was repeated. She stepped swiftly to the doorway and looked
inside. The girl was lying in a limp heap on the bunk, her face, her
hands and wrists, her white shirtwaist smeared horribly with blood,
while an unforgettable look of terror and repulsion seemed frozen in her
eyes. The sight startled even Dr. Harpe.
"What's the matter? What's happened?" She shook her roughly by the
shoulder, for the half-unconscious girl seemed about to faint. "Where's
Dubois?"
She bent her head to catch the answer.
"Outside."
Dr. Harpe was not gone long, but returned to stand beside the bunk,
looking down upon Essie with eyes that in the dimness of the
illy-lighted cabin shone with the baleful gleam of some rapacious
feline.
"You did a good job, Ess; he's dead as a mackerel."
The answer was the faint, broken moan which came and went with her
breath.
"I'll go to town for help----"
The girl opened her eyes and looked at her beseechingly.
"Don't leave me alone!"
Dr. Harpe ignored the whispered prayer.
"Don't touch anything--leave everything just as it is," she said curtly;
"it'll be better for _you_."
Before she untied her team at the shearing-pens she walked around the
house and looked once more at the repulsive object lying upon a dingy
quilt. Death had refused Dubois even the usual gift of dignity. His
mouth was open, and his eyes; he looked even more than in life the brute
and the miser.
"Two shots; and each made a bull's eye. One in the temple and another
for luck. Either would have killed him."
She covered his face with a corner of the "soogan" and glanced around.
The short, highly polished barrel of a Colt's automatic protruded from a
clump of dwarf cactus some few feet away. She swooped swiftly down upon
it and broke it open. The first cartridge had jammed and every other
chamber was filled. Dr. Harpe held it in the palm of her hand, regarding
it reflectively. Then she took her thumb nail and extracted the jammed
cartridge and shook a second from the chamber. These she kept. The gun
she threw from her with all her strength.
She lost no time in urging her fagged horses up the steep hill opposite
the ranch house on the road back to Crowheart. At the top she let them
pant a moment before they started up another almost as steep.
Dr. Harpe removed her hat and lifted her moist hair with her fingers.
The sun was lowering, the annoying gnats and flies were beginning to
subside, it soon would be cool and pleasant. Dr. Harpe looked back at
the peaceful scene in the flat below--the sheep-wagon with its canvas
top, the square, log cabin, the still heap beside it--really there was
no reason why she should not enjoy exceedingly the drive back to town.
Out of the hills behind her came a golden voice that had the carrying
qualities of a flute.
"Farewell, my own dear Napoli, farewell to thee, farewell to thee."
The smile faded from her face.
"The devil!" She chirped to her horses. "Where'd _he_ come from?"
Those of Crowheart's citizens who yawned at 8 and retired at 8.30 were
aroused from their peaceful slumbers by the astounding news that Essie
Tisdale had shot and killed old Edouard Dubois, and the very same day
that she had married him for his money. As a result, Crowheart was astir
at dawn, bearing every evidence of a sleepless night and a hasty
toilette.
This was the town's first real murder mystery. To be sure, there was the
sheep-herder, who was found with his throat cut and his ear taken for a
souvenir; but there was not much mystery about that, because he was off
his range and had been duly warned. Also there had been plain killings
over cards and ladies of the dance hall--surprising sometimes, but only
briefly interesting--certainly never anything mysterious and thrilling
like this.
Sylvanus Starr in that semi-conscious state midway between waking and
sleeping, composed a headline which appeared on the "Extra" issued
shortly after breakfast.
"A Man, a Maid, a Marriage and a Murder" read the headline, and while
the editor made no definite charges, he declared in double-leaded type
that the County should spare no expense to bring the assassin to justice
_regardless of sex_, and the phrase "the dastardly murder of a good
citizen and an honorable man" passed from lip to lip unmindful of the
fact that in life Dubois had not been regarded as either.
That portion of Crowheart which was pleased to speak of itself as the
"sane and conservative element" endeavored to suspend sentence until the
deputy-sheriff should return with further details, but even they were
forced to admit that, from the meagre account furnished by Dr. Harpe,
"it certainly looked bad for Essie Tisdale."
Dan Treu and the coroner, who was also the local baker, started
immediately for the sheep-ranch, and Dr. Harpe accompanied them. "Ess
looked about 'all in,'" she said in explanation.
They found the girl and the Dago Duke waiting by the fire which he had
built outside the cabin. Huddled in a blanket which he had thrown about
her shoulders she sat staring into the fire with the shocked look which
never left her eyes. Utter, utter weariness was in her flower-like face
and over and over again her subconsciousness was asking her tired brain,
"What next? What horrible thing can happen to me next? What is there
left to happen?" She felt crushed in spirit, unresentful even of Dr.
Harpe's presence, for she felt herself at the mercy of whosoever chose
to be merciless. But the Dago Duke was unhampered by any such feelings.
He commented loudly as Dr. Harpe swaggered toward them with her hands
thrust deep in the pockets of the man's overcoat which she wore on
chilly drives--
"The ghouls are arriving early."
"There's another word as ugly," Dr. Harpe retorted significantly.
"I can't imagine--unless it's quack."
"Or accomplice," she suggested with a sneer.
Dan Treu frowned.
With the surprising tact and gentleness which blunt men of his type
sometimes show, the deputy-sheriff drew from the girl her story of the
murder.
"I went to the creek--down the trail there--to get some water. I was
only gone a moment; I was bending down--dipping with the pail--I heard
two shots--close together. I thought he was shooting at prairie dogs--I
did not hurry. When I came back--he was lying near the wagon. It was
horrible! I called and called. He was dead. The blood was running
everywhere. I got a quilt and dragged and dragged until I got him on it
somehow. I saw no one. I heard no one."
Her slender hands were clenched tightly and she spoke with an effort.
There was silence when she finished, for her story seemed complete;
there seemed nothing more that she could tell. It was Dr. Harpe who
asked--
"But his gun--where's his gun? He's always kept a gun--I've seen it--a
Colt's automatic?"
The girl shook her head.
"I don't know."
"And, Doctor,"--it was the Dago Duke's suave voice that asked the
question--"you saw no one--passed no one while driving through the
hills?"
She looked at him steadily.
"I saw no one."
His eyelids slowly veiled his eyes.
"Why do you ask that?" His faint smile irritated her. "Don't you suppose
I would have said so long before this?"
"Let's look for that gun," the deputy interrupted. "He had a gun--I'm
sure of that; every sheepman packs a gun."
With the aid of a lantern and the glare of a huge sagebrush fire they
searched in the immediate vicinity for the gun and in the hope of
finding some accidental clue.
"We can't expect to do much till morning," the deputy opined as with his
light close to the ground he looked for some strange footprint in the
dust of the dooryard.
It was behind the cabin that Dan Treu stooped quickly and brought the
lantern close to a blurred outline in a bit of soft earth close to a
growth of cactus. He looked at it long and intently and when he
straightened himself his heavy, rather expressionless face wore a
puzzled look.
"Come here," he called finally to the coroner. He pointed to the
indistinct outline. "What does that look like to you?"
The coroner was not long from Ohio.
"It looks to me like somebody had made a track in his stockin' feet."
The deputy was born near the Rosebud Agency.
"Does it?" he added. "I guess we won't walk around any more until
morning."
The track was a moccasin print to him.
It was the coroner who said to Dan Treu in an undertone as they sat by
the fire waiting for the daylight--
"Did you ever see a woman act like Doc? By Gosh! did you ever see
anybody act like Doc? She's enjoyin' this--upon my soul she is! She
makes me think of a half-starved hunting dog that's pulled somethin'
down and has got a taste of blood."
The deputy nodded with an odd smile.
The Dago Duke said nothing. But he seemed vastly interested in watching
Dr. Harpe. He observed her every movement, her every expression, with a
purposeful look upon his face which was new to it.
They found the gun in the morning, caught in a giant sagebrush where it
hung concealed until accidentally jarred loose by no less a person than
Mr. Percy Parrott, who had arrived early to give his unsolicited aid to
the deputy-sheriff.
The Colt's automatic was easily identified as Dubois's gun, and two
shells were missing.
"A pretty rough piece of work," commented Dr. Harpe as she looked at the
empty chambers.
"As raw as they make it," agreed the Dago Duke for once.
"Don't run away, Dago," said the sheriff, "I may want you."
"Run?--when I go I'll fly."
All the town turned out to look when Dan Treu drove into town with the
girl sitting bolt upright and very white upon the seat beside him.
They stopped at the Terriberry House and her old room was assigned to
her, but all the gaping crowd considered her a prisoner.