"I can count on Mrs. Terriberry. Even you have no influence with her, Dr. Harpe." "You are very sure of your two friends." The woman slouching over the table looked more than ever like a bird of prey. "Very sure," Essie Tisdale answered, again in proud defiance. "Then of course you know that Van Lennop left Crowheart this morning?" She drawled the words in cruel enjoyment with her eyes fixed upon the girl's face. Her eyes shone malevolently as she saw it blanch. "Didn't he tell you he was going? I'm amazed." The girl stood in stunned silence. "Yes, a telegram sent him to Mexico to look after some important interests there. Quite unexpected. He left a letter for me saying good-by and regretting that he would not be back. So you see, my dear Essie, that when it comes to the actual count your friends have simmered down to one." It was not enough that she should crush her, she wanted somehow to wring from her a cry of pain. "You made a fool of yourself over him, Ess! The whole town laughed at you. You should have known that a man like Van Lennop, of his position, doesn't take a biscuit-shooter seriously. Green as you are you should have known that. You've ruined yourself in Crowheart, doggin' his footsteps every time he turned and all that sort of thing; he simply couldn't shake you. You're done for here; you're down and out and you might as well quit the flat. It's the best thing you can do, or marry the first man that asks you and settle down." Essie Tisdale looked at her, speechless with pain and shock. She had no reply; in the face of such a leave-taking there seemed nothing for her to say. Every taunt was like a stab in her aching heart because she felt they must be true. It _was_ true, else he would not have left her without a word. What did it all mean? How could such sincerity be false! Was no one true in all the world? Oh, the sickening misery of it all--of life! She turned away and left the dining-room, swaying a little as she walked. Dr. Harpe returned to her room with a smirk of deep satisfaction upon her face. "I soaked the knife home _that_ time," she murmured, pinning on her stiff-brimmed Stetson before the mirror, but, mingled with her gratification was a slight feeling of uneasiness because she had gone farther than she had intended in mentioning Van Lennop's letter and boasting that it had been left for her. The pair of horses which she and Lamb owned in common was at the stable already harnessed for their semi-weekly trip to the camps along the Ditch, but Dr. Harpe turned their heads in the opposite direction and by noon had reached the sheep-camp of old Edouard Dubois. She hitched her horses to the shearing-pen and opened the unlocked door of the cabin. A pan of freshly-made biscuit and a table covered with unwashed breakfast dishes told her that the cabin was being occupied, so she reasoned that it was safer to wait until some one returned than to search the hills for Dubois.