"Don't tell me! I know what you come for! You come to look after your worthless whelp of a man; that's why; an' you stayed to try to take mine!"--voice weakening as she again turned her face toward the window.
The sharp shake of the girl's arm threw off Ann's hand that had gone out to grasp it and the rasp in Nora's voice checked the eastern woman's protest.
"Don't try to tell me anything different! I know! Can't I see? Am I as blind as you try to make me think you are?"--with another swagger of the shoulders as she moved in her chair. "Can't I see what's goin' on? Can't I see you makin' up to him an' eyein' him an' leadin' him on?--You, a married woman!"
With set mouth Ann straightened, her breathing audible.
"I _won't_ stop. You're goin' to hear me through, understand? You're goin' to know all about it; you're goin' to know what I am an' what he is an' what's been between us ... what you've been breakin' up. Then, I guess you won't come in here with your swell eastern ways an' try to take him.... I guess not!"
She laughed bitterly and Ann could see the baleful glow in her eyes.
"I told you that he brung me here an' put me to work, I guess. Well, that was so; he did. I'll tell you where he got me." She hitched forward. "He brung me from th' Fork. You come through there; all you know 'bout it is that there's a swell hotel there an' it's a junction point. Well, the's a lot more to know about th' Fork ... or was."
She paused a moment and rubbed her palms together triumphantly, as if she had long anticipated this moment.
"When I was there, the' wasn't no hotel; the' wasn't nothin' but a junction an' ... hell itself. 'Twasn't a place with much noise about it, not so many killin's as some places maybe, but 'twas bad, low down.
"The' was a place there ... Charley Ling's.... 'Twas a Chinese place, with white women. I was one of 'em."
Ann gasped slightly and drew back, and Nora laughed.
"I thought that'd hurt," she mocked. "I thought you couldn't stand it!
"Charley's was a fine place. Sheep herders come there an' Mexicans an' sometimes somebody of darker color. We wasn't particular, see? We wasn't particular, I guess not! Men was white or black or red or yellow or brown, but their money was all one color....