"He-he-he! He-he-he-he!" Pop Snow’s shrill pipe continued, while the others demanded more. "Sawbones had n’t been gone a week afore he was wanted. He-he-he! eh, dear! eh, dear! Lucky Jones come along—an’ stopped. Ther’ wearn’t nothin’ _to_ do but stop. He comes to me an’ he says: ’Wheer ’s ther’ a doctor?’ ’Well,’ I says, ’jedgin’ from what I hears, if you jest foller th’ river north fur about fifteen mile to Drigg’s Worry,’ I says, ’you ’ll find a saw-bones as used to be yer—but when he left he swears as how he ain’t never comin’ back to th’ P’int,’ I says. He-he-he! Send-I-may-live if he don’t, though. Yep, an’ Jones purty nigh goes into th’ wet, too. ’Th’ P’int?’ roars th’ Doc, ’No, siree, by G—d, no, sir! Twenty-eight mile th’ last time to tend a stinkin’ ole sow, on account o’ a misbegotten son o’ Beelzebub an th’ North Pole they call Snow down there. This time I ’spose ’t’ud be a skunk.’ ’It’s my wife,’ says Jones, ’an’ if yuh don’t come right sudden I ’m a-goin’ to blow off th’ top o’ yore devilish ole head,’ says Jones; ’an’ if she dies,’ he sez, ’I blows her off, anyhow.’ He-he-he! Saw-bones, he riz up an’ come a-kitin’. I ain’t much on Welshmen; they biles over too easy. But Saw-bones done a good job an’ got away wi’ his life. We hears all about it nex’ day when Jones comes to me an’ tells me it is two at once, boy an’ a girl. Fust we knowed he ’d brung his wife. Not as she stays long. Winter ’s one too many fur her an’ she cashes in. Then Lucky Jones, he tries to cross th’ river below th’ P’int, ’stid o’ th’ ford, an’ th’ ice ain’t strong enough, an’ Jones, he was some drunk, I reckon. We calls th’ river after him an’ th’ forks after th’ kids. Lord, they was bad uns, both on ’em. Black Jack, he hez hisself hung for suthin’ or other, an’ Little Jill, she turns out just a plain—" Every one jumped, it was so unexpected. The lead sung so close to Dirty’s nose that the backward jerk almost took him off the table and he recovered his seat with a sideways wriggle and squirm that did credit to the elasticity of his aged muscles. Having managed to retain his seat, he continued to retain it. None of the others showed the least desire to move, though every last man of them yearned for absence—sudden, noiseless absence—of a kind so instantaneous as to preclude the possibility of notice: anything less were foolhardy in the face of those blazing eyes and that loosely held gun, its business end oscillating like the head of a snake and far more deadly. "Don’t be afeared, Dirty," purred Dave, in the kindliest tones. "I was jest a-puttin’ in th’ period. Yore eddication is shameful, Dirty, an’ I grieves for you, account of it. You has a generous mixture o’ commas an’ semi-commas an’ things like that, but yore periods is shore some scarce. You was a-sayin’ as how Little Jill was a sweet, good gal, as never done wrong in her life, was n’t you?"