The Lady Doc - Caroline Lockhart (ebook reader computer .txt) 📗

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