Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/166

 back, running the palm of his hand across his hair like a flat-iron, the outcome of the interference not quite clear to him yet. There was blood on his shirt, blood on the boards where he stood. But he was not conscious of any hurt.

Dine Fergus rushed up, stooped and made a sweeping grab for the intruder's gun, which lay almost at Dr. Hall's feet. Hall came out of his momentary daze, alert and aggressive, and gave Fergus a kick that rolled him a rod.

Jim Justice came puffing up, smashing his way to the inner circle. He stood on the edge of the platform, looking down at the man between the rails.

"Look at him bleed! It's spurtin' out of him like somebody'd knocked out the bung. He'd 'a' got you, Doc, if somebody hadn't took him that crack in the arm!"

"Who was it? Who done it?" eager voices inquired.

"Over there," said Justice, waving his arm vaguely toward the town. "I seen the flash."

Dr. Hall stuck the gun, which was long and heavy, between his body and the waistband of his pantaloons, a very unsatisfactory, insecure and uncomfortable way of carrying a gun, no matter for the piratical precedent which appears to be unquestionable. He had no other place to put the thing; he could as well have carried one of the jerries' picks in his hip pocket. The pistol made a harsh pressure against his ribs when he bent over the wounded man between the rails, lifting his bleeding arm to investigate the seriousness of his hurt.

It was bad enough. Somebody's bullet had smashed one bone and cut the artery. Hall did not stand to argue the man's worth to society, or his worthiness to live under