Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/98

 away from him, doubled him ingloriously across his knee and stripped him of his holster and knife.

Then the assembled voters of Damascus saw the young doctor fold back the long coat-tails of his notorious competitor, and apply a spanking to his obscene old carcass such as a grown man never had laid on him before in the memory of those who watched. Old Doc Ross took the punishment with hoarse outbursts of blasphemous bellowing, with kickings of the heels, squirmings and twistings, all as ineffectual as the struggles of an infant across the maternal knee.

When Dr. Hall felt that the humiliating chastisement had gone far enough, he upended Old Doc Ross, planted him squarely before the crowd, held him steady by the back of the neck, and gave him a sound and solid kick. It sent the old ruffian off with such speed that his short legs were not equal to the pace. He fell, sliding his nose through the cinders, bringing up at the very feet of Jim Justice in a cloud of dust.

Dr. Hall turned around, as from some ordinary job, such as throwing a cat out of the door, picked up Old Doc Ross's formidable weapons, went into his boxcar office and kicked the bullet-splintered door shut in the faces of the gang that had come down to the railroad to see the thing played out to quite a different end. From the door of the kitchen across the track, Dr. Hall heard a loud burst of unrestrained, appreciative laughter.