e home-pasture for the
spring _rodeo_, and on the morrow they would have to work harder
still, cutting out the steers and branding the calves.

"Who is this Perfessor?" asked Dan.

Jimmie, who was rubbing tallow on to his lariat, answered--

"There's a piece about him in the _Tribune_."

Pete picked up the county paper, which happened to be lying on the
floor. He read aloud, in a sing-song drawl--

"'We are greatly honoured by the presence amongst us of Professor Adam
Chawner, the eminent surgeon and pathologist----'"

"How's that?" demanded Dan.

"Surgeon an' path--ologist."

"What's path--ologist?"

Pete expectorated a contempt for ignorance which he was too polite to
put into words. Then he said suavely--

"A pathologist is a kind o' pathfinder. Comes from the Greek, I
reckon: _path--logus_--skilled in finding noo paths to knowledge.
See!"

"If you ain't a walkin' dictionary!"

"It comes nateral to me," Pete admitted modestly. He continued--

"'The Professor, instead of taking a well-earned holiday in our land
of roses and sunshine, proposes to study at first hand the micrococci
of a deadly disease which, we are given to understand, is peculiar to
this part of California....'"

"Never heard of a deadly disease peculiar to these parts," said Jimmie
thoughtfully,--"always exceptin' Annie-dominie."

"'Peculiar to this part of California,'" continued Pete, "'and likely,
given certain conditions, to develop into an epidemic as terrible and
mysterious as the sleeping sickness.'"

"Sleepin' sickness? What's that?"

"Dan, yer ignorance is disgraceful. Sleepin' sickness is common as
hives amongst the cannibals. After a square meal o' missionary, the
critters fall asleep, and they don't never wake up neither. Serve 'em
right, too."

"Go on, Pete."

Pete, with a thick thumb upon the right line, went on--

"'The Professor's researches here may prove of vital importance. And,
speaking for our fellow-citizens, we venture to assure this
distinguished pathologist of our cordial desire to co-operate, so far
as it may be possible, in the important work which he has
undertaken.'"

"Slings words, that feller," remarked Jimmie. "But what in thunder is
Perfessor Adam Chawner a-doin' in Paradise?"

"Come, mebbee, to see you rope steers," suggested Dan.

"I shall aim not to disappoint him," replied Jimmie. "All the same, I
ask you fellers straight: Has he come here to--work?"

"Meanin'?"

"If this yere dea