, and exclaimed,

"By George, Aleck, you better get over the fence and leave town as
quick as you can. There's thunder to pay about those patent medicines
of yours. Old Mrs. Gridley's just gone up on that liver regulator,
after being in convulsions for a week. Thompson's hired girl is lying
at the last gasp, four of the Browns have got the awfulest-looking
heads you ever saw from the hair vigor, and about a dozen other people
are up at the sheriff's office taking out warrants for your arrest.
The people are talking of mobbing you, and the crowd out here on the
pavement are cheering a green-headed man with a gun who says he's
going to bang the head off of you. Now, you take my advice and skip.
It'll be sudden death to stay here. Leave! that's your only chance."

Then Doctor Perkins got over the fence and ran for the early train,
and an hour later the mob gutted his office and smashed the entire
stock of remedies. Perkins is in Canada now, working in a saw-mill.
He is convinced that there is no money for him in the business of
relieving human suffering.

CHAPTER XXVII.

_GENERAL TRUMPS OF THE MILITIA_.

The principal warrior in our community is General Trumps, the
commander of the militia of the district. The general has seen service
in the South and West, and is a pretty good soldier. In these happy
days of peace, however, he does not often have an opportunity to
display his fighting qualities, but sometimes even now, when he is
provoked to wrath, he becomes bloodthirsty and ferocious. Last summer
the general went to Cape May. Previous to his arrival two young men,
whom I will call Brown and Jones, occupied adjoining rooms at a
certain hotel. One day Brown fixed a string to the covers on Jones'
bed and ran the cord through the door into his own room. His purpose
was to pull the covers off as soon as Jones got comfortably fixed for
the night. But that afternoon General Trumps came down; and as the
hotel was crowded, the landlord put Jones in the room with Brown and
gave Jones' apartment to the general. Brown forgot about the string,
and he and Jones went to bed. About midnight Jones' dog, while
prowling around the room, got the string tangled about his leg, and in
struggling to reach the window he slowly dragged the bed-clothes off
of the soldier, next door. That gentleman awoke, and after scolding
his wife for removing the blankets went to sleep again. Presently
Jones' dog saw a rat and darted after it. Off