"Augusta!" There was horror in his voice. "Do you realize what this means? Do you understand what you are doing--that you are choosing between this woman and me? Are you crazy? Are you mad?"
"Yes, yes, yes! Anything you like, but I"m going! I tell you, you shan"t dictate who and who not shall be my friends!"
"But she isn"t your friend!" he cried with savage bitterness. "She"s your worst enemy. Augusta,"--the harshness went suddenly from his voice--"I beg of you don"t let this woman come between us!"
"You"re a nice one to criticise others."
He winced at the taunt.
"I"ve tried to make amends," he pleaded.
"Well--you haven"t! And," she flung the challenge at him recklessly, "if you want to get a divorce, get it, for I"ll quit you quick before I"ll give up Dr. Harpe."
She stared into his eyes defiant, unabashed, and in her face he read his defeat--the utter uselessness and futility of commands, or threats, or appeals. He loosened his hold of her wrist without a word, and, flinging him a last glance of angry resentment and defiance, she walked swiftly toward the hotel.
XVI
THE TOP WAVE
Medical contracts between Drs. Harpe and Lamb, Andy P. Symes and the several contractors upon the project, were properly executed before Symes left for Chicago--alone. It entailed a delay, but Dr. Harpe insisted upon immediate action, and her covert threats had the desired result.
"I"ve kept my word," she said, "and it"s up to you to keep yours. If Gus comes to see me that"s your lookout, not mine." And since Symes could not help himself, he consented, although he knew that the delay might mean the loss of an investor.
Dr. Harpe quickly realized that she had a.s.sailed him in his most vulnerable spot and Symes realized as surely that she would use this knowledge to the limit to attain her ends.
"Am I a coward or a hero?" Symes sometimes asked himself in his hours of humiliation and ignominy.
The day Andy P. Symes left for Chicago Dr. Harpe celebrated the era of prosperity upon which she was about to enter, by the purchase of a "top-buggy," which is usually the first evidence of affluence in the West.
"Doc"s all right--she"s smart," chuckled the populace when they heard the news of the contract and watched her sitting up very straight in the new vehicle with its shining red wheels and neatly folded top.
"Moses!" Dr. Harpe told herself frequently and complacently, ""getting there" is easy enough if you"ve only the brains and the nerve to pull the right wire," and she considered that she had taken a turn around Opportunity"s foretop in a manner which would have been creditable to a far more experienced hand than hers; also she had no reason to doubt that the "wire" upon which she now held an unshakable grip held manifold possibilities. By her astuteness and daring, she a.s.sured herself, she was in absolute control of a situation which promised as great a success as any person handicapped by petticoats could hope for. a.s.suredly the top wave made pleasant riding.
Lamb accepted her partnership proposition with an avidity which rather indicated that he needed the money. He had no objections to being a salaried scapegoat providing the pay was sure, but naturally it did not occur to Lamb to regard himself in any such light. If Dr. Harpe dubbed him her "peon," she took care to treat him and his opinions with flattering deference.
They rented a long, unpainted, one-story building which had been a boarding house, for hospital purposes. It was divided lengthwise by a narrow hall which ended in a dingy kitchen in the rear. Dr. Lamb who had some vague theories upon sanitation protested feebly when the operating room was located next to the kitchen, but the location was not changed on that account. The office in the front was furnished with a few imposing bottles and their combined display of cutlery was calculated to impress. Their ideas as to keeping expenses for equipment at a minimum were in perfect harmony, for Lamb as well as Dr. Harpe regarded it as a purely commercial venture. The latter, however, was disposed to regard the purchase of an X-ray machine as a profitable investment because of the impression it would make upon their private patients.
"Moses!" She chortled at the notion. "Wouldn"t their eyes bung out if I showed "em their own bones! I could soak "em twice the fee and they"d never peep."
Lamb discouraged the idea for the present on the grounds of economy and advised a sterilizing apparatus instead, which Dr. Harpe opposed for the same reason.
If Dr. Harpe had been given the opportunity of selecting an a.s.sociate from a mult.i.tude of pract.i.tioners, it is doubtful if she could have found another better suited to her purpose than the man Lamb. Although, by some means, he had succeeded in being graduated from an inst.i.tution of good repute, he was a charlatan in every instinct--greedy, unscrupulous, covering the ignorance of an untrained mind with a cloak of solemn and pious pretence which served its purpose in the uncritical, unsuspicious western community where a profession is always regarded with more or less awe.
Lamb"s colorless personality had made no great impression upon Crowheart and as yet he was known chiefly through his professional card which appeared among the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the Crowheart _Courier_. Dr. Harpe had not reckoned him a formidable rival, but she recognized in him an invaluable a.s.sociate; and often as she contemplated his pasty face, his close, deep-set eyes and listened to his nasal voice she congratulated herself upon her choice, for he was what she needed most of all, a pliable partner.
"Be you goin" to put up a sign?" inquired Lamb.
"Sure; we want all the advertisin" we can get out of this, don"t we?"
And soon the day came when the two partners stood across the street and read proudly:
HARPE AND LAMB HOSPITAL
In her new buggy with its flashing wheels Dr. Harpe was soon driving through the different camps along the project, and the laborers rather enjoyed the novelty of visits from the "lady doc," as they called her, and consented good-naturedly enough to the deduction of monthly dues for hospital benefits from their wages.
While they regarded her professionally and personally in a humorous light and made her more or less the target of coa.r.s.e jokes, as is any woman who leaves the beaten track, yet the general feeling toward her was one of friendliness.
They laughed at her swaggering stride, her masculine dress, the vernacular which was their own speech, but there was quickly established between them and her a good-humored familiarity which was greatly to her liking. They become "Bill" and "Pat" and "Tony" to her and she was "Doc"
to them.
While her horses trotted briskly the length of the ditch and she was returning smiling nods and flinging retorts that were not too delicate over her shoulder, she began to feel herself a personage; she was filled with a growing sense of importance and power.
There was everything to indicate that the contract would prove all that she and Lamb had hoped for. The general health was exceptionally good and she urged sanitary precautions upon the men to prevent long and expensive fevers; as yet there was no dangerous rock-work entailing the use of explosives to imperil the lives and limbs of the men. The remedies required were of the simplest and the running expenses of the hospital were nil.
When they received their first checks from the Company and the contractors, Lamb"s joy was almost tearful.
"It"s easier than layin" bricks, Doc," he said as they wrung each other"s hands in mutual congratulation.
Dr. Harpes" ambitions grew with her bank account, and among them there was one which began to take the shape of a fixed purpose. With her successful manipulations of conditions to further her own ends she came to believe herself in her small world invincible. The effect of this belief upon a nature like hers was to increase its natural arrogance and her tendency to domineer, while the strange, extravagant personal conceit which seemed so at variance with her practical nature became a paramount trait.
There was really no doubt in her mind that she could marry Ogden Van Lennop if she really set about doing so. It was only of late that she had given the thought words. In the beginning when she had discovered his ident.i.ty, the most she had hoped for was to be friends, for a friend of Van Lennop"s importance might be useful. She felt that there would be some way of turning his friendship to account. The fact that they were still only acquaintances did not discourage her, nor the fact that he seemed entirely satisfied with the companionship of the erstwhile belle of Crowheart.
Rich men and rich men"s sons had a way of amusing themselves with the society of their inferiors where they were unknown, was her disdainful explanation to herself, but it piqued and irritated her even while it furnished the material for her sly innuendoes, for the insidious attacks which were fast completing what Andy P. Symes"s social dictatorship had begun. With her mounting arrogance Dr. Harpe believed that if her ultimate success in her new ambition demanded the entire removal of Essie Tisdale from the field, this too she could accomplish. Her overweening confidence now was such that she was persuaded that she could shape events and mould the lives of others and her own as she willed.
She was resting one day in her new office in the hospital after a long drive along the ditch, and from her window she watched Van Lennop at the Kunkel blacksmith shop across the street. He gave his horse a friendly pat between the eyes before he swung into the saddle and she stood up to watch him gallop the length of the street with the lithe and confident grace which made him a noticeable figure in the saddle.
"Moses!" she observed aloud, "but he has improved in looks since he landed here--his looks, however, are a mere incident compared to the value of his name on the business end of a check. Harpe,"--she sn.i.g.g.e.red at a mental picture--"how will you look anyhow hanging to a man"s arm?
As a clingin" vine you"ll never be a conspicuous success, but you could give a fair imitation if the game was worth the candle, and this happens to be an instance where it is. Let"s have a look at you, my child."
She took a small hand-mirror from beneath the papers of a drawer and regarded her reflection with a critically humorous smile.
"You"re not the dimpled darling you once were, Harpe," she said aloud.
"You"re tired now and not at your best, but all the same there"s a kind of a hard-boiled look coming that"s a warning, a hint from Father Time, that you"ve got to do something in the matrimonial line before it gets chronic."
Still viewing herself in the mirror she continued her soliloquy--
"By rights, Harpe, you ought to cut out these pique vests and manly shirt bosoms and take to ruches and frills and ruffles. It would be the quickest way to make a dent in his heart. He"s that sort, I can see, but, Lord! how I hate such prissy clothes! Your chance will come, Harpe, you"ll wear the orange blossoms now you"ve set your mind on it, and, if the chance doesn"t come soon you"ll have to make it."
XVII
THE POSSIBLE INVESTOR