Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/275

 "It is?" said Gus, astonished in his turn. "Why ain't you heard?"

"Because nobody ever told me. Are you sure it was Ross?"

"Because nobody never told you!" Gus repeated, out of breath in his amazement at such great innocence, or great stupidity. "Everybody in Simrall knows it, and I'd bet money, if I was a sinner, everybody in Damascus knows it but you—if you're givin' it to me straight."

"He's the last person in the world I'd have guessed. What proof have you got it was Ross?"

"A cowboy from one of Simrall's outfits was standin' by the old rooster when he pulled his gun and busted my arm. It was Old Doc Ross, all right, no difference how them fellers have been stringin' you along it was somebody else. He can shoot the eyes out of a crawfish when he's sober, they say."

"I suppose Burnett and that gang know," Hall reflected. "I thought they'd been keeping some trick up their sleeves on me. You see, I don't belong to the town, Gus. I'm an outsider. They think I'm a kind of a joke."

"There ain't ten men in that town that's worth a hallroom in hell, Doc," Gus said, in the mild, dispassionate way of a man stating a well-known truth. "It was Old Doc Ross shot me that night—nobody else. It don't cut no ice what they've been passin' out to you; it was Old Doc Ross."

"I'm glad to get it straight," said Hall, but looking far from jubilant.

Gus was on his way to Dodge, carrying what he possessed behind his saddle in no very imposing roll. He