its wide mouth. She would stop this wiping abruptly, to turn and say something to one of the girls, or lean out a little to try and catch what was being said by the men with guns who were marching Dr. Hall among them. Then she would wipe again, furiously, as if she had to engender fire in the yellow bowl to heat up the jerries' supper.
The worktrain was worming down the siding, where it would come to a stand presently between Mrs. Charles' kitchen and Dr. Hall's boxcar office. The engine was not more than five or six rails' length away when Mrs. Charles saw a large fat man come out of Dr. Hall's office, red and wrathful, and shove a gun in the doctor's face. With each jab of the weapon the fat man shoved it a little nearer, Dr. Hall backing away from him. It was a very insulting, extremely humiliating, proceeding, Mrs. Charles thought, for a man of Dr. Hall's dignity to bear.
A similar thought was passing through Dr. Hall's mind at the same moment. It was trying on a man's patience, a test of his self-control. Simrall had no call to make that insulting play, and he. Andrew Hall, had no business to stand and take it.
As his cogitations rose to a sudden hot head with this conclusion, Dr. Hall hauled off and hit Simrall somewhere in the several folds of chin that hung like heavy dewlaps in front of his red neck. It was a good punch, and well directed, with all the force of outraged dignity and overtaxed forbearance in it. Simrall flopped back into the open door as Mrs. Charles shrilled encouraging applause.
Being started. Andrew Hall was not an easy man to stop. He at once landed a good solid kick on the young man who had been detailed as his personal guard, putting
