Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/73

 pose you'll have plenty of time. Shoot with a limber arm, that's the style of the best gunmen out here. You can pick it up fast with an hour's practice a day."

"And how about this man Ross?" Hall inquired, thinking it just as well to go through the list of his troubles while about it. "I've been told there's more trouble waiting for me when he sobers up and takes to his legs. Is he as dangerous as he's represented?"

"If anybody was to offer me Old Doc Ross' hide," said Judge Waters, "I wouldn't consider it worth stakin' out—in the sun to dry. I'd forgotten you've come here to take his place as company doctor. Yes, he used to botch around at it as a side line to his general practice in town, but he was so erratic, Pete Farley told me, he was more harm than good. No, there's nothing to fear from Ross when he's sober. When he's drunk he's as mean as a briar. I expect likely you'll have a visit from him."

"It looks like I've stirred up a mess of trouble in this town," Hall said gloomily.

"That's something mighty hard to leave behind a man," Judge Waters said. "But you're not thinking of quitting?"

"Not the slightest notion of it," Hall returned.

He was standing with legs apart in that way of his that suggested bracing to face a hard wind, or a hard blow, or a hard tussle of any kind. He raised himself to his toes with the easy, confident strength of a man assured of himself and his destiny; settled back to his heels, looked Judge Waters in the eye, and smiled.

Judge Waters offered his hand again, his own close-fitting lips parting from his teeth in the thread-width crack that passed with him for a grin.