Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/101

 the stick without getting his fingers burned. By the special dispensation in favor of fools, he had come through two scrapes in as many days with a whole hide, his high opinion of himself undiminished by the slightest degree. If that kind of luck continued there would be no putting up with him; they'd have to turn the town over to him and get out. It had been Jim's great hope to see the long-legged new doctor disappear like a pair of galloping shears down the railroad. He had given humorous expression to this anticipated pleasure, which made disappointment a very large and bitter pill.

"Yes, and what's this town goin' to do with Old Doc Ross drove off on another drunk that may last two weeks?" Larrimore wanted to know. "We might all break our legs or git pizened, and nobody to look after us—nobody that I'd trust to set no leg of mine, anyhow."

"He couldn't cure a cat," Dine Fergus said, giving it such a twist of disdain in word and facial grimace that it was almost nasty.

"My wife's got to have somebody to 'tend to her purty soon, and that's a cinch," Kraus said, proclaiming the condition of his spouse with the peculiar indelicacy common to men of his class. "It ain't goin' to be a doctor that's so green he has to hold a book in one hand while he works with the other."

"Did he do that?" Fergus inquired greedily. "Did he git out a book to study up what to do to old Bill Cottrell?"

"He set there nearly all night readin' some kind of a book, it had a black back like a medicine book, but I can't say positive it was one," Justice testified. He said it with such mean innuendo that no doubt was left in the