Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/256

 was putting her false-fronted head out of the door and drawing it back, like a hen in a coop.

"Yeh. We heard how you bluffed the crowd that was after Gus Sandiver with a sponge soaked full of water," the young man said, grinning widely, showing short, worn teeth and red gums, as if he had been gnawing his subsistence out of hard things since very early in life. "Yeh, and I'm bettin' that was a bluff you run on Simrall, too. I'm bettin' I could swaller all the strickenine you had in that gun and never gag."

"You'd lose," Hall told him, confidently, taking the little case from his vest pocket. "If you've got any doubt, just stick out your arm."

The young man shuffled back, presenting his rifle threateningly.

"You stand right there, pardner! you stand right there!" he said.

"Just as you feel about it," Hall replied indifferently, as if he had offered something that the young man had been the loser by refusing.

Dr. Hall looked at his watch with the bored air of a man kept waiting in an appointment that was of little consequence to him. A train whistled faintly, far to the west. Dr. Hall drew out his watch again, although he had slipped it into his pocket only a second before, in the railroad habit of looking at the watch to identify by time everything that goes on wheels. He stood that way, watch in his palm, head turned to listen for the whistle again, and at that minute, full of interest and speculation for the young man with the rifle, Ora Simrall and his searching crew came out of the court house basement.