right, I say, and Ike knows it. What would you do,
Ike, if you saw a fellow pounding Slipper over the ears?"

"Poundin' Slipper?" said Ike slowly, pausing to turn his quid of
tobacco in his cheek. "Poundin' Slipper," he repeated with even greater
deliberation. "Knock his blank face into the back of his head."

"Then it seems to me, Ike, you were let off easy." The old gentleman
smiled grimly down upon the cowboy, who was still wrathful, but more
puzzled than wrathful. The smiling man at the pony's head looked so
thoroughly good-natured that it was hard to push a quarrel, but still
Ike's dignity had been injured.

"What I beg to remark is," he continued, returning to the attack, "kin
he do it agin? Does he have any lingerin' suspicion that he is capable
of that act?" Ike reserved his best English for serious occasions. "If
he does, I'm willin' he should extemporise at it."

"Good man, Ikey!" drawled the voice again from the crowd. "I'll back
Ikey to his last pant's button."

Shock stood silent and smiling, while Ike stood facing him, more and
more puzzled. Shock was an entirely new experience. He would not fight,
he would not run away, he would not even get angry.

At this point the old gentleman interfered.

"Now, Ikey," he said, "it is time you were learning some manners. This
gentleman is no pugilist. He has neither the desire nor the intention
of fighting you, which is perhaps all the better for you. That is a
poor way to treat a stranger the first day he arrives in our town.
Perhaps you will allow me to be of some service to you," he said,
turning to Shock.

"Thank you," said Shock simply. "I am in need of a doctor first of all.
Two of my friends at Loon Lake are very ill. Is there a doctor in this
town?"

"There is," replied the old gentleman. "Dr. Burton. But I very much
fear that he will hardly be fit for service to-day. Unfortunately, our
doctor, though a remarkably clever practitioner, is not always--well,
to be quite frank, he is very frequently drunk. Get him sober and he
will do you good service."

"How shall I accomplish that?" asked Shock, with a feeling of despair
in his heart, thinking of the Old Prospector in his pain and of little
Patsy lying in semi-unconsciousness in the back room of the Loon Creek
Stopping Place. "I must have a doctor. I cannot go back without one."

"Then," said the old gentleman, "you will need to kidnap him and wait
till he sobers off."

"I shall try," said Shock