Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/178

 a pretty good joke to swear the killing of that man off on my hands. I tell you, gentlemen, you're not going to put another joke like that over on me to-night. I'll take this man to jail myself. When we step out of this door, you spread out and stay spread."

Dr. Hall made a motion of menace: with the dripping sponge; it was followed by a rasping and scurrying of feet. No mob is valiant; no man is courageous before a mystery. Hall took Gus Sandiver by the arm and marched him out, slamming the office door shut after him, the spring lock shutting up the secret of the big black bottle.

"Go to your horse," Hall whispered.

Fortunately, the way to the horse was the way to jail. The old horse-thief had tied his animal to a telegraph pole behind a screening pile of ties, close by the side of Custer Street. Hall had him in the saddle, the reins thrown around his neck, the unloaded pistol thrust into his undamaged hand, before the bluffed crowd, slowly reassembling a cautious distance behind, gathered what was going on.

A kick of the spurs and Sandiver had a big stack of steel rails between him and the baffled humorists of Damascus. The few shots they chucked in his direction did him no more harm than if they had been fired into the ground. Alone Gus Sandiver had ridden into Damascus, alone he rode out of it. He had not spared his rescuer a word, either a blessing or a curse.

Dr. Hall returned to his office deliberately, the scuffing of feet in the gloom around him like the noise of stalking beasts which lack the courage to spring; opened his door and threw the sponge in the basin, corked the dark