He removed the finger, spat painfully and took his face in both hands again.
“Sleepy” Stevens was suffering the pangs of an aching molar. “Hashknife” Hartley, the tall, lean cowboy, nodded understandingly.
“It’s worse than I thought, Sleepy,” he said, his voice full of sympathy. “You’ve got what they call a Eskimo abscess.”
“Huh? How do yuh know?”
“I can tell by yore talk—pure Eskimo.”
“A-a-a-aw, —-! If you had this ⸺ tooth—”
“We’re goin’ to water these animals at Pinnacle City,” offered one of the crap-shooters. “You’ll have time to have that tooth pulled.”
“Hadn’t ought to be far now,” observed Hashknife.
He bent his long nose against the dirty window glass and peered out. The wind whistled past, and the sand sifted through the window. A lightning flash illuminated things and a rumble of thunder came to their ears.
A few minutes later a brakeman, carrying a lighted lantern, swung aboard.