Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/171

 In keeping with the frontier fashion of that day, and a day long before, this man wore a huge mustache. It was red, coarse as a horse's mane, in harmony with his tufted eyebrows which gave him a fierce, inexorable, scowling look. The mustache had no spirit to it, but drooped over his mouth, well suited to his generally sulky ensemble. His face was sharp and narrow, his head reptilian, small. He had little more chin than a chicken. It was easy to believe that all the frontier viciousness was compressed into the fellow and reduced to its most virulent tincture by the slow dehydration that had made him stringy muscle and bone.

He lay blinking his red eyes, sullen and full of resentment, not understanding his situation any more than a caged wild eagle comprehends its case. After a little he began to clear out of his daze to the realization that something had happened to him and he had fallen into friendly hands. Outside there was comparative quiet, the dance being dispersed by the interruption. The jerries were not hilarious, for beer was not their liquor. It drowned the soul of a man, they said, before it warmed his heart.

Dr. Hall had not passed a word with the patient, nor attempted to. He had plenty to think of in connection with the ungracious ruffian as he worked rapidly to patch him up securely enough to send him on his way, vicious and unlawful as that way might be.

How to get rid of him, and keep him from falling into the hands of those notable town humorists at the same time, was a question. Hall was determined not to give Larrimore, Kraus, Fergus and the rest of them a chance to play another of their rare jokes at his expense. If that old wind-chafed, whisky-scorched scoundrel in the