"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. "Nobody 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.