Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/92

 before him like some battered old rooster with wings outspread.

Ross' hat was pulled down to the bridge of his nose, his red eyes glaring in vaporous hostility out of the shadow. His face was streaked where the restoring ice water had cut channels through the grime; his little snub nose was red as a haw among the tangle of his beard.

"I'm red pepper, I'm lye!" he declared, with a certain kind of burned-out, depraved pride. "When I light on a wolf's hide water won't wash me off—I burn him to the guts, I eat through him gristle and bone! What're you doin' in my town, tryin' to sneak in and eat my practice out from under me, you hell-branded hyena? You've got mud on your belly, you sneak so close to the ground! What're you doin' here in my town, I say!"

"Maybe I didn't know it was your town," Hall replied, feeling very cheap for passing words with the offensive old buzzard on any kind of terms.

"You know it now, you sore-eyed wolf!"

"I've not got any designs on your practice in this town, Doctor Ross. I'm the railroad physician, my territory doesn't extend past this boxcar."

"I'm the railroad doctor, I've never resigned my appointment," Ross declared. "You can't sneak in here and carry off your false pretenses on this town."

Hall felt the annoyance of his situation keenly. The gang up the street was increasing every moment; Mrs. Charles and her daughters were watching from their kitchen door; the station agent was looking and listening with his head out of his bay window, passing comment on the show with his wife, stationed at a window of their living-quarters upstairs. Hall wanted to spoil their en-