"Meller moon _nothin_"! Come on, don"t be a piker." She was ladling punch into each of their gla.s.ses.
"Ah-h-h! Ain"t that great cough mixture!" Mr. Terriberry rolled his eyes in ecstasy as he once more saw the bottom of his gla.s.s. "Doc, "bout one more and me and you couldn"t hit the groun" with our hats." Mr.
Terriberry speared a bit of pineapple with the long nail of his forefinger and added ambiguously: "M"bet you."
"Aw, g"long! Food for infants, this--wish I had a barrel of it."
"Doc, you got a nawful capac"ty." Mr. Terriberry looked at her in languishing admiration. "That"s why I like you. Honest t"G.o.d I hate to see a lady go under the table firs" shot out o" the box. Now my wife,"--suddenly remembering the existence of that lady Mr. Terriberry tiptoed to the door and endeavored to locate her--"my wife," he continued in a confidential whisper, "can"t take two drinks t"hout showing it. Doc,"--Mr. Terriberry"s chin quivered as the pathos of the fact swept over him--"Doc, Merta"s no sport." Mr. Terriberry buried his face in his highly perfumed handkerchief as he confessed his wife"s shortcomings.
"Aw, dry up! Take another and forget it," replied his unsympathetic confidante crossly.
Mr. Terriberry looked up in quick cheerfulness.
"Le"s do, Doc. Do you know I hate water--just plain water. If it"ll rot your boots what"ll it do to your stummick!"
A man breathless from haste appeared in the doorway of the anteroom.
"Dr. Harpe----"
"What is it?" She did not turn around.
"A case came in at the hospital--feller shot, down the street."
"Where"s Lamb?" she demanded irritably.
"Out of town."
"Thunder!" She stamped her foot impatiently. "Who is it?" she scowled.
"Billy Duncan. He"s bleedin" bad, Doc." There was a note of entreaty in his voice.
"All right," she answered shortly, "I"ll be down."
"Frien" of yours?" inquired Terriberry.
"Friend? No. One of those d.a.m.ned hoboes on the Ditch. Looks like he might have taken some other night than this."
"Don"t blame you "tall, Doc. I gotta get to work and fin" Merta. If you see Merta----" Mr. Terriberry suddenly realized that he was talking to himself.
As Dr. Harpe made her way to the cloak-room she was conscious that it was well she was leaving. The lights were blurring rapidly, the dancers in the ballroom were unrecognizable and indistinct, she was sensible, too, of the increasing thickness of her tongue. Yet more than ever she wanted to laugh hysterically, to scream, to boast before them all of the things she had done and of those she meant to do. Yes, decidedly, it was time she was leaving, her saner self told her.
She fumbled among the wraps in the cloak-room until she found her own, then, steadying herself by running her fingertips along the wall, she slipped from the hotel without being observed.
"Made a good getaway that time," she muttered.
Her lips felt stiff and dry and she moistened them frequently as she stumbled across the hummocks of sagebrush growing on the vacant lots between the hospital and the hotel. She fell, and cursed aloud as she felt the sting of cacti spines in her palm. She sat where she fell and tried to extract them by the light of the moon. Then she arose and stumbled on.
"G.o.d! I"m drunk--jus" plain drunk," she said thickly, and was glad that there would be no one but Nell Beecroft about.
Nell was safe. She had long since attended to that. They shared too many secrets in common for Nell to squeal. Nell was not easily shocked. She laughed foolishly at the thought of Nell being shocked and wondered what could do it.
Her contract with Symes called for a graduate nurse--Dr. Harpe snorted--a graduate nurse for hoboes! Nell was cheaper, and even if her reputation was more than doubtful she was big and husky--and they understood each other. The right woman in the right place, and with Lamb helped form a trio that stood for harmony and self-protection.
"Graduate nurse for hoboes!" She muttered it scornfully again. "Not on your tintype!"
She fell against the kitchen door and it opened with her weight.
"Hullo, Nell!" She blinked foolishly in the glare of the light.
The woman looked at her in silence.
"Hullo, I say!" The cloak slipped from her bare shoulders and she lunged toward a chair.
The flush on her face had faded and her color was ghastly, a grayish white, the pallor of an anaemic; the many short hairs on her forehead and temples hung straight in her eyes, the filmy flounce of her gown was torn and trailing, while a scraggly bunch of Russian thistle clung to the chiffon ruffles of her silk drop-skirt.
The woman stood in the centre of the kitchen with her arms akimbo--a huge raw-boned creature of a rough, frontier type.
She spoke at last.
"Well, you"re a sight!"
"Been celebratin", Nell," she chuckled gleefully, "been celebratin" my S"preme Moment."
"You"d better git in there and fix that feller"s arm or we"ll be celebratin" a funeral," the woman answered curtly. "He"s bleedin" like a stuck pig."
"That"s what he is--good joke, Nell. Where"d it happen?" She seated herself in a chair and slid until her head rested on the back, her sprawling legs outstretched.
"Gun fight at the dance hall. Look here," she took her roughly by the arm, "I tell you he"s bad off. You gotta git in there and do somethin"."
"Shut up! Lemme be!" She pulled loose from the nurse"s grasp, but arose, nevertheless, and staggered down the long hallway into the room where the new patient lay moaning softly upon the narrow iron cot.
"Hullo, Bill Duncan!"
His moaning ceased and he said faintly in relief--
"Oh, I"m glad! I thought you"d never come, Doc."
"Say," her voice was quarrelsome, "do you think I"ve nothin" to do but wait at the beck and call of you wops?"
The boy, for he was only that, looked surprise and resentment at the epithet, but he was too weak to waste his strength in useless words.
She raised his arm bound in its blood-soaked rags roughly and he groaned.
"Keep still, you calf!"
He shut his teeth hard and the sweat of agony stood out on his pallid face as she twisted and pulled and probed with clumsy, drunken fingers.
"Nell!" she called thickly.
The woman was watching from the doorway.