Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/151

 "It's a good job Burnett made them take their goons off, or they'd be shootin' up company property, let 'em take a few more dhrinks. Little good them cow-herdin' fellys are, with their goons swingin' on 'em. Give one of them a linin'-bar and order him to j'int ahead, and where would he turn? He couldn't arn his salt at a man's worruk, and if it's fightin' that's to be done, leave me take a pick-handle in me fist and I'll defate a rigimint of them."

"There isn't a doubt about it," Hall said heartily, without the slightest consideration of the valor or merits of either side.

He only thought that Elizabeth must have reconsidered her promise to come down and stand on the rim of the crowd a while. She was not among the spectators who fringed the platform, or sat off at a distance more aloof on piles of ties and rails. Several mounted visitors were present, but Elizabeth was not among them. Just as well, Hall thought. It was a rough affair, and likely to be rougher.

The station agent, whose name was Nance, inhabited the upper part of the depot with his young wife, who was famed as the prettiest woman in Damascus. He had come to that station only recently from the indefinite region known as the east, which included all the world on the opposite side of Dodge City. Dr. Hall saw him at an upstairs window now, looking down on the boisterous crowd that thronged his planked domain.

Nance was a frail pale man, disproportionately consequential in comparison with his situation, a$ station agents in small places usually are. Even among agents, Nance was an aggravated case. He was bitter over being