Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/229

 around for a place to spit. "All the permanents want you. Judge Waters says you're the finest surgeon he ever saw."

"Judge Waters is a townsite boomer. Extravagant talk is his line of trade."

It pleased him to hear the judgment of that lean, slow-striding, meditative, old man, none the less. He would have stretched himself to his toes in another moment, catching his leg muscles as they were setting to the act, but for Elizabeth's expectantly provoking grin. She was watching for him to preen himself in his pride, probably with the intention of calling him down.

"Try walking around town with the mortals a while," she suggested. "You might as well get used to our ways, for we're not going to let you leave."

Hall was in no humor for trying out her suggestion as he went back to the town square, heading for his office. He hadn't mounted a high horse, he defended himself to his own conscience. He had been indifferent and aloof because he had not felt himself a part of the town, or ever likely to have any deeper interest in it than now. They had conspired against him from the first, throwing their own guilt at his door, trying to give it all the air of a great piece of public levity. It was about as funny as somebody leaving an unwelcome infant in a fellow-traveler's arms.

He held his deliberative way toward Custer Street, thinking of his situation in that town, an outsider who had come to camp on the edge of it, never intending to mingle in its life and affairs. How the swirl of events, small and local as they were, had laid hold of him like the vicious current in a despicable, brawling, muddy little stream, and rolled him until he came to his feet standing