The Lady Doc Part 43

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 f.a.gged 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 f.a.gged 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.

Sylva.n.u.s 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 a.s.sa.s.sin to justice _regardless of s.e.x_, and the phrase "the dastardly murder of a good citizen and an honorable man" pa.s.sed 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 the fire with the shocked look which never left her eyes. Utter, utter weariness was in her flower-like face and over and over again her subconsciousness was asking her tired brain, "What next? What horrible thing can happen to me next? What is there left to happen?" She felt crushed in spirit, unresentful even of Dr.

Harpe's presence, for she felt herself at the mercy of whosoever chose to be merciless. But the Dago Duke was unhampered by any such feelings.

He commented loudly as Dr. Harpe swaggered toward them with her hands thrust deep in the pockets of the man's overcoat which she wore on chilly drives--

"The ghouls are arriving early."

"There's another word as ugly," Dr. Harpe retorted significantly.

"I can't imagine--unless it's quack."

"Or accomplice," she suggested with a sneer.

Dan Treu frowned.

With the surprising tact and gentleness which blunt men of his type sometimes show, the deputy-sheriff drew from the girl her story of the murder.

"I went to the creek--down the trail there--to get some water. I was only gone a moment; I was bending down--dipping with the pail--I heard two shots--close together. I thought he was shooting at prairie dogs--I did not hurry. When I came back--he was lying near the wagon. It was horrible! I called and called. He was dead. The blood was running everywhere. I got a quilt and dragged and dragged until I got him on it somehow. I saw no one. I heard no one."

Her slender hands were clenched tightly and she spoke with an effort.

There was silence when she finished, for her story seemed complete; there seemed nothing more that she could tell. It was Dr. Harpe who asked--

"But his gun--where's his gun? He's always kept a gun--I've seen it--a Colt's automatic?"

The girl shook her head.

"I don't know."

"And, Doctor,"--it was the Dago Duke's suave voice that asked the question--"you saw no one--pa.s.sed no one while driving through the hills?"

She looked at him steadily.

"I saw no one."

His eyelids slowly veiled his eyes.

"Why do you ask that?" His faint smile irritated her. "Don't you suppose I would have said so long before this?"

"Let's look for that gun," the deputy interrupted. "He had a gun--I'm sure of that; every sheepman packs a gun."

With the aid of a lantern and the glare of a huge sagebrush fire they searched in the immediate vicinity for the gun and in the hope of finding some accidental clue.

"We can't expect to do much till morning," the deputy opined as with his light close to the ground he looked for some strange footprint in the dust of the dooryard.