hat hoss of yourn again.'

"There's another sort of doctor, Shawn, the magic-healers, the sort as
cures by the layin' on of hands and rubbin'. Pelican Smith was one of
this sort. He practiced up on the Kentucky river and made a sort of
circuit down in our country. Sometimes thar would come a report of
somebody gittin' well, but when anybody died, Pelican always said, 'The
Lord loved him best.' You never knowed Pelican. He was all sorts of a
character--got his nickname from his nose--they weren't no other one
like it, and him and that nose made history in the river country. His
first marriage was to Addie Stringer, up at Ball's Landing, and it was
all right as fer as it went. They started on their honeymoon from Ball's
Landing on the steamer Little Tiger. They was goin' down to Wide Awake,
some thirty miles. The boat caught fire, Pelican swum out on a
crackerbox, and when they found the body of his wife next day, Pelican
thumped the side of his nose with his thumb and said, 'Hit's a dam pity
she couldn't swim'.

"It wasn't long before he got into business by starting a 'blind tiger',
and he worked up several war dances in the community, but one night thar
was started a mild argument as to whether the Methodists or the Baptists
was the chosen of the Lord. The argument was in Pelican's place, and he
had to close up the joint, for nearly all of his best customers passed
out with the close of the argument. Pelican told me afterward that over
three hundred shots was fired, and said to me, 'I reckon the only reason
I was saved was that I didn't belong to either denomination, as I am a
Campbellite.'

"Pelican moved down on the Ohio after this, and it was there I met him.
There is always considerable interest, Shawn, in a stranger when he
moves into a community, especially if there is some mystery about him.
Pelican didn't have much to say--he had no desire to mention his past.
He was wise. It was rumored that he had left a good farm at Ball's
Landing and had moved down on the Ohio for asthma trouble that bothered
him. About the only disease he ever had was the whiskey habit, but he
did not dispute any of the statements made by an interested community.
His stock went up with the talk about the farm. He was invited to take
supper with Bill Bristow. Bill owned twenty acres of hill land, with a
small house and a mortgage on it. Old Bill's daughter, Lettie, set next
to Pelican at the table, and old Bill looked on with satisfaction