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 the car to the other end, tried that door with no better success; came storming back to the more public end, where he stood commanding the interloper to come out and take his orders.

Dr. Hall sat in his untried surgical chair, greatly annoyed, not a little disturbed by a growing belief that Ross might be more dangerous in that clouded borderland between drunkenness and sobriety, than he appeared. He had nothing but a surgical knife to defend himself with in case the old scoundrel should break in, as he was threatening now in loud voice to do.

Hall was considering his situation with a cold feeling of apprehension, recalling Mrs. Charles' unfeigned concern. He regretted coming in. That was a bad move; it would look like dodging to the gang in the street, and it had worked on Old Doc Ross like a retreat before a hesitant dog. He was looking through the open door in the partition toward the exit in the farther end, thinking of going out that way, when Old Doc Ross began drilling bullets through the front door.

The surgical chair stood in the middle of the floor, in direct line of the bullets which were splintering through the thin planks of the door. Hall jumped over to the wall, where he stood trying to make himself flat, thinking that was a poor place for a man to be shut in, with a red-eyed old soak pegging away at his coop before an appreciative crowd.

"Come out and take your orders!" Ross yelled. Then a splintering crash, the roar of the gun, a little pause. "Come out and take your orders!" The bullets smacked the partition, going on through as if there was nothing in the way.