For a moment I stood an' looked at him, while a lot o' things became clear as day to me. A woman--ol' Monody was a woman! When I thought of what a girl is, an' what it must have took to make one want to really be a man, I felt plumb ashamed o' my sex; but here was another creature in man's clothes standin' an' grinnin' into my face as though he had done somethin' smart. "How do you know?" I sez soft an' steady. "I went in an' examined--it was my professional duty. She had been shot in the abdomen and the bullet had lodged in the spine. She had stuffed a rag into the hole an' all the bleedin' was internal. I found that--" "Who was with you?" I asked him. "Nobody," he said with pride; "I went in alone an' I found--" "I'm obliged to ya, Boys," sez I, "an' I'll be obliged to you still more if you'll just stand to one side an' watch me make an examination. I only got one arm, so it's perfectly fair. It seems to be the fashion now days to examine human beings who wear men's clothes--but who ain't men--so I feel it my PROFESSIONAL DUTY to examine this here speciment before us." The grin kind o' left his face when I started for him. He wasn't near my size, but me only havin' one workin' arm made it fair. He looked to the boys to help him, but they was unusual placid. I reached out an' grabbed him by the collar an' put my knee in his stomach as a brace; he struck me in the face an' in my wounded shoulder, but in about one minute I had his clothes off him, an' there he stood the shamedest thing I ever see. "Now you get out o' here an' ride home," sez I, "an' I believe if I was you I'd pick myself out a new home--one 'at would take about six weeks to ride to. You won't be popular around here from this on." "Can't I put my clothes on," he sez. "Not these," sez I. "If you have any more where you've been livin' you can put them on; but I hope in my heart the sun peels your back before you arrive, an' I hope when you do arrive the' 'll be enough women awake to give you a raw-hidin' for bein' indecent. Now git." He looked into the boys' faces again, but they wasn't friendly--they wasn't even smilin', an' then he went outside, got his pony, an' rode away. He rode clear out o' the West I reckon, 'cause while I heard of the story purty much everywhere I went after that, I ain't never heard o' the buzzard himself since that day long, long ago. It was dawn by the time he'd rode out o' sight with his white skin shinin' on his hunched up form, an' then I went in to set with ol' Monody a while. CHAPTER FIVE JUST MONODY--A MAN He looked mighty peaceful, did ol' Monody. Curious thing about death, is the way it seems to beautify a person. In life Monody was the homeliest human I ever see, an' yet the' was something so kindly, an' gentle, an'--an' satisfied in his face there under the lamplight, that I reached out an' patted his hand, almost envious--even though my fool eyes was a-winkin' mighty fast.