CHAPTER IX
HOW A BAD MAN LEFT THE “KICKER” OFFICE
It was about one o’clock in the afternoon when the Kicker appeared on Dry Bottom’s street. At about five minutes after one, Potter left the front of the office and walked to the rear room where he halted at the imposing stone. There he proceeded to “take down” the four forms. This done he calmly began distributing type.
While Potter worked Hollis sat very quietly at his desk in the front office, his arms folded, one hand supporting his chin, his lips forming straight lines, his eyes narrowed with a meditative expression. Occasionally Potter glanced furtively at him, his eyes filled with mingled expressions of sympathy, admiration, and concern.
Potter appreciated his chief’s position. It meant something for a man of Hollis’s years and training to bury himself in this desolate sink-hole of iniquity; to elect to carry on an unequal war with interests that controlled the law machinery of the county and Territory–whose power extended to Washington. No doubt the young man was even now brooding over the future, planning his fight, pessimistically considering his chances of success. Potter’s sympathy grew. He thought of approaching his chief with a word of encouragement. But while he hesitated, mentally debating the propriety of such an action, Hollis turned quickly and looked fairly at him, his forehead perplexed.
“Potter,” he remarked, “I suppose there isn’t a good brain specialist in this section of the country?”
“Why–why—” began Potter. Then he stopped and looked at his chief in wordless astonishment. His sympathy had been wasted.
“No,” laughed Hollis, divining the cause of the compositor’s astonishment, “personally I have no use for a brain specialist. I was thinking of some other person.”
“Not me?” grinned Potter from behind his type case. He flushed a little at the thought of how near he had come to offering encouragement to a man who had not been in need of it, who, evidently, had not been thinking of the big fight at all. “Perhaps I need one,” he added, eyeing Hollis whimsically; “a moment ago I thought you were in the dumps on account of the situation here–you seemed rather disturbed. It surprised me considerably to find that you had not been thinking of Dunlavey at all.”
“No,” admitted Hollis gravely, “I was not thinking of Dunlavey. I was wondering if something couldn’t be done for Ed Hazelton.”
“Something ought to be done for him,” declared Potter earnestly. “I have watched that young man closely and I am convinced that with proper care and treatment he would recover fully. But I never heard of a specialist in this section–none, in fact, nearer than Chicago. And I’ve forgotten his name.”