Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/157



was in a bad condition, his right foot having been all but severed by a falling rail. Dr. Hall had hoped to pass the operation on to the hospital surgeons at Topeka, and the suffering man, a big-jointed, lanky young fellow, a very steam-shovel of a man, was firmly determined that the foot should not be taken off at all. This fatuous determination had grown so strong in him, encouraged by the foolish counsel of his fellows, that he repelled all the doctor's efforts to alleviate his pain.

These same friends who were leading him on to destruction by their advice, had supplied Gallaher with a quart of whisky, which he had under his pillow, or such of it as he had not swigged and poured on his distressing injury. The air fairly quivered with alcoholic distillations around Gallaher, who declared he felt a great deal easier, and that he would have no ministration nor medicine except that first and last remedy of the jerry for all the woes, physical and mental, that overtake a man.

Red-eyed in his pain, fierce in his ignorant defense of his injured member, Gallaher would hear nothing of an hypodermic injection of morphine to give him a few hours' sleep before the arrival of the fast train from the west, on which Dr. Hall designed to ship him away to Topeka. No, they were not going to throw any such trick as that