An open-handed smash across the mouth stopped his words. He made a swift pass with his right hand. Scot’s left shot out and caught the wrist, twisting it back and up. A bullet was flung into the sky; then, under the urge of a pain which leaped from wrist to shoulder of the tortured arm, the revolver dropped harmlessly to the ground.
“Goddlemighty, you’re breakin’ my arm,” Dodson shrieked, sagging at the knees as he gave to the pressure.
Scot sent home a stiff right. “You’ll be nursing a black eye from that to-morrow,” he said evenly.
The craven in Dodson came out at once. He tried to escape punishment by whining and begging. He promised anything the other man might demand of him. He made an attempt to fling himself to the ground and cover up. McClintock set his teeth and went through with the job.
Afterwards to the bully who lay on the sand sobbing with rage and pain, he gave curt orders. “You’ll go back to town and not show up at the wagon to-night. To-morrow you’ll tell Mrs. Dodson you had a fight. You’ll not tell her who with or what it was about. If you ever lay a hand on her again or on Vicky, I’ll break every bone in your body. Understand?”
The beaten man gulped out what might be taken for an assent.
Scot turned away, sick at heart. Already he questioned the wisdom of what he had done.
CHAPTER VIII
SCOT OFFERS HEALTH HINTS
A Washoe zephyr was playing impish tricks in Virginia City. It screamed down the side of Mt. Davidson in a gale of laughter, filling the air with the white powder of alkali dust. It snatched hats from unwary heads and sent them flying into the cleft cañon below which led through the hills to the sage desert. It swooped up a dog on A Street and dropped the yelping cur down the chimney of a shack on B Street. Boards were ripped from fences and sucked straight into the air for fifty feet. A basket of duck eggs took premature flight from a farmer’s wagon, sailed through the window of a barber shop, and gave a customer in the chair a free egg shampoo. The wind came in ribald gusts, tremendous, filled with jeering howls.