Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/221

 she corrected him, this time the laugh on her side of the field. "We require brains in our doctors instead of—"

"Belly," said Major Cottrell, filling out the hesitant pause.

"Major Cottrell!" she reproved him, blushing to the tips of her ears.

"You don't have to observe those old-maidish niceties when you discuss anatomy before a doctor," Major Cottrell assured her with off-hand ease, pleased to the ribs to see the flash of virtuous delicacy in his wife's face. "Maybe we can induce Doctor Hall to take the old man's place when he blows up. He could do worse—he could do miles worse—than throw in with us here and grow up with the town."

"It would be a hard life, but a full one," she said, looking at Dr. Hall with appeal more pressing than any her tongue could speak. "A doctor in a pioneer place is a missionary."

"Pioneer place!" Major Cottrell discounted the designation for Damascus. "We did the pioneering here twenty years ago. There's nothing to do in this country now but pick up the profits of our hardships."

"There'll be hardship and suffering among these poor people who are crowding in here expecting to farm," she said in prophetic sadness. "I see them drive past going out to their claims, all they possess in one wagon, and not overloaded at that. They're unprepared, they don't realize what's ahead of them."

"There's not much profit for a doctor in them," Major Cottrell said, with the cattleman's hardness for those who had come to displace him of his ancient rights.