Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/65

 pressions too easy. It might take a dangerous one some of these days if you ain't careful."

"Gentlemen, the case is closed," the coroner hastened to interpose.

Without leaving the room the jury returned the verdict of justifiable homicide, as the coroner had directed. Bud Sandiver, said the jury, had come to his death in the act of riot against the constituted authorities of the state of Kansas and the city of Damascus, but at whose hands the verdict did not state. It was implied, certainly, that Sandiver had fallen at the hands of the constituted authorities mentioned. Public opinion gave the credit to Dr. Hall, the new railroad doctor who had come there to supplant Old Doc Ross.

Damascus was feeling pretty well over what it seemed to consider a comical piece of business all around. Whatever tragedy there had been in Major Cottrell's peril and wounding, whatever heroism in the intervention of this stranger, was overshadowed by the humorous phase of the incident. Everybody agreed it was a rare joke on Bud Sandiver to come to such an end, although as they laughed and passed winks it was evident some greater joke was being kept sequestered among themselves. Hall felt this. He was not slow in coming to the conviction that the town's big laugh was not at the expense of Bud Sandiver, but of himself.

Damascus was afraid of the Simrall shooting men; afraid in particular of Gus Sandiver, who would come on his day to demand a reckoning for his brother's life. How easily Damascus had side-stepped this responsibility by giving the perilous credit to a stranger who was