"Upon your honor, Nell?"
She looked the sheriff squarely in the eyes.
"Upon my honor, Dan."
She saw the doubt lying behind his look, but she did not flinch.
"When she comes, send me word. No," on second thought, "you needn"t; I"ll be back." He tapped the inside pocket of his coat significantly. "I want to see Dr. Harpe most particular."
"I"ll tell her," the woman answered shortly. She watched him down the street. "He knows I"m lyin"," she muttered, and though the heat was unusual, she closed the door behind her.
The m.u.f.fled sound of beating fists drew her to the cellarway.
"Nell--let me out! Quick! Open the door!"
Nell Beecroft took a key from her ap.r.o.n pocket and demanded harshly as she turned it in the lock:
"What"s the matter with you, anyhow?"
Dr. Harpe stumbled blinking into the light.
"Oh-h-h!" she gasped in relief.
"You"d better stay cached." Nell Beecroft eyed, with a look of contempt, the woman for whom she had lied. "Dan Treu was here; he"s got a warrant."
"I don"t care--I"ll not go down there!" She pinned wildly at the loosened knot of dull red hair which lay upon her shoulders. "That was fierce!" She looked in horror down the dusky cellarway.
"What ails you, Harpe?" There was no sympathy in the harsh voice.
Dr. Harpe laughed--a foolish, apologetic laugh.
"Spooks--Nell! I"m nervous--I"m all unstrung. Moses! I thought all the arms and legs we"ve amputated were chasin" me upstairs. Did you hear me scream?"
"No," the woman reiterated sharply. "Dan Treu was here. He wants to see you most particular."
"You didn"t tell him----"
"Of course not."
"You won"t go back on me, Nell?"
The woman regarded her in cold dislike.
"No, I"ll not go back on you, Harpe. A man or a woman that ain"t got some redeemin" trait, some one thing that you can bank on, is no good on earth, and stickin" to them I"ve throwed in with happens to be mine.
What you goin" to do? stay and brazen it out--this mess you"re in--or quit the flat?"
"Nell," she replied irrelevantly with a quick, uncertain glance around, "I"m _afraid_. Do you know what it is to be afraid?"
"I"ve been scart," the woman answered curtly.
"I"ve a queer, sinkin" feeling here," she laid her hand at the pit of her stomach, "and my back feels weak--all gone. My knees take spells of wobblin" when I walk. I"m afraid in the dark. I"m afraid in the light.
Not so much of any one thing as of some big, intangible thing that hasn"t happened. I can"t shake off the feeling. It"s horrible. My mind won"t stop thinkin" of things I don"t want to think of. My nerves are a wreck, Nell. I"ve lost my grip, my judgment. I"m not myself."
Nell Beecroft listened in hard curiosity, eyeing her critically.
"Oh, yes, you are, only you"ve never really seen yourself before. You"ve took your bra.s.s for courage. Lots of people do that till some real show-down comes."
"Look here, Nell,"--her voice held a whine of protest--"you haven"t got me sized up right." Yet in her heart she knew that the woman"s brutal a.n.a.lysis was true. Better even than Nell Beecroft she knew that what pa.s.sed with her following for shrewdness and courage in reality was callousness and calculating cynicism.
The woman ignored the interruption and went on--
"So long as you could swagger around with Andy P. Symes to bolster you up and a crowd of old women to flatter you, you could put up a front, but you ain"t the kind, Harpe, that can turn your back to the wall, fold your arms, and sling defiance at the town if they all turn on you."
"But they won"t."
"You"ve got a kind of mulishness, and you"ve got gall, and when things are goin" your way you"ll take long chances, but they ain"t the traits that gives a person the sand to stand out in the open with their head up and let the storms whip thunder out of them without a whimper."
"It"s my nerves, I tell you; they"re shot to pieces--the strain I"ve been under--everything goin" wrong--pilin" on me like a thousand of brick."
"Is it goin" to be any better?"
"Some of my friends will stick," Dr. Harpe repeated stubbornly.
"Sure, they will. A woman like you will always have a followin" among the igner"nt and weak-minded."
"What you roastin" me for like this?" The woman"s brutal frankness touched her at last. "Who and what do you think you are yourself?"
"Nothin"," Nell Beecroft returned composedly. "n.o.body at all. Just the wife of a horse-thief that"s doin" time. But," and her hard, gray eyes flashed in momentary pride, "he learnt me the diffrunce between sand and a yellow-streak. They sent fifty men to take him out of the hills, and when he was handed his medicine he swallowed the whole dose to save his pardner, and never squeaked."
Nell Beecroft walked to the window swallowing hard at the lump which rose in her throat.
"If I could sleep--get one night"s decent sleep----"
"When you collapse you"ll go quick," opined the woman unemotionally.
"But I"m goin" to see it through--I"ll stick to the bitter end--I"m no coward----"
"Ain"t you?" Sudden excitement leaped into Nell Beecroft"s voice and she stared hard down the street. "Unless I"m mistaken you"re goin" to have as fine a chance to prove it as anybody I ever see. Come here." She pointed to a gesticulating mob which was turning the corner where the road led from the Symes Irrigation Project into town.
"The dagos!" Dr. Harpe"s voice was a whisper of fear.
"They"re on the prod," Nell Beecroft said briefly, and strode to the cellar-door. "Cache yourself!" She would have thrust Dr. Harpe down the stairway.
"No--no--not there! I can"t! I"d scream!" She shrank back in unfeigned horror. "I"m goin" to run for it, Nell! The Dago Duke has ribbed this up on me!" From force of habit she reached for her black medicine case as she swung her Stetson on her head. "If I can get to Symes"s house--down the alley--they can"t see me----"
Nell Beecroft, with curling lips, stood in the kitchen doorway and watched her go. Crouching, with her head bent, she ran through the alley, panting, wild-eyed in her exaggerated fear.
A big band of bleating sheep on the way to the loading pens at the station blocked her way where she would have crossed the street to Symes"s house. She swore in a frenzy of impatience as she waited for them to pa.s.s in the cloud of choking dust raised by their tiny, pointed hoofs.