"Look here, Ess, if you want to be friends with me, and have my
influence to get you out of this mess, you'd better change your
tactics."
"Haven't I yet made it clear to you that I care no more for your
friendship than for your enmity? Do you imagine that you can frighten
liking, or force respect after the occasion which we both remember?"
"There's one thing I can do--I can make Crowheart too hot to hold you!"
Her grip on herself was going fast.
Essie Tisdale stood up and, folding her arms, drew herself to her slim
height while she looked at her in contemptuous silence.
"I know there is no low thing to which you would not stoop to make good
your boast. You make me think of a viper that has exhausted its venom.
You have the disposition to strike, but you no longer have the power."
"You think not? And why? Do you imagine that your position in Crowheart
will be changed one iota by the fact that you've got a few dollars that
are red with blood?" She flung the taunt at her with savage insolence.
"My position in Crowheart is of no importance to me. But"--her voice cut
like finely tempered steel--"don't goad me too far. Don't forget that I
know you for what you are--a moral plague--creeping like a pestilence
among people who are not familiar with your face. I know, and you _know_
that I know you are in no position, Dr. Harpe, to point a finger at the
commonest women in the dance hall below."
The woman sprang from her chair and walked to her with the crouching
swiftness of a preying animal. She grasped Essie Tisdale's wrist in a
grip which left its imprint for hours after.
"How dare you!"
Essie Tisdale raised her chin higher.
"How dare I?" She smiled in the infuriated woman's face. "It takes no
courage for me to oppose you now. When I was a biscuit-shooter here, as
you lost no opportunity to remind me, you loomed large! That time has
gone by. Crowheart will know you some day as I know you. Your name will
be a byword in every saloon and bunk-house in the country!"
"I'll _kill_ you!"
The tense fingers were curved like steel hooks as she sprang for Essie
Tisdale's slender throat, but even as the girl shoved her chair between
them a masculine voice called "Esther" and a rap came upon the door.
Doctor Harpe's arms dropped to her side and she clutched handfuls of her
skirt as she struggled for self-control.
Essie Tisdale walked swiftly to the door and threw it wide. The towering
stranger stood in the corridor looking in amazement from one woman to
the other.
The girl turned and said with careful distinctness:
"You have been so occupied of late that perhaps you have not heard the
news. My uncle--Mr. Richard Kincaid--Dr. Harpe."