We hurried across the road to the sprawling old building hidden in a thicket and listing in every direction of the compass, but over the roof, like friendly arms crooked the branches of big mesquite trees. Among mining men that ramshackle was known around the world. Inside was a big pot-bellied stove. Beside it, a huge woodbox. Chairs held together with baling wire. Two or three old auto seats hauled in from cars abandoned on the desert. An ancient, moth-eaten sofa on which the wayfarer out of luck was privileged to sleep. Three or four tables, each with a dog-eared deck of cards where old timers played solitaire or a spot of poker. There were books and magazines—high and low-brow, left by the tourists. But there was a friendliness about the shabby room that had nothing to gain from mahogany or chandeliers of gold. Wind kept us indoors for two days. On the third we were on the bench again when someone said, “Here comes Charlie....” A moment later Joe and Big Dan were helping Charlie take Shorty Harris, dean of Death Valley prospectors, more dead than alive, into a cabin and lay him on the bed. “You must have had an awful time,” Joe said to Charlie. “Not too bad ... made it,” Charlie answered as he started a fire in the stove. He brought in water and wood and turned to Joe. “Wish you’d fill up that gas tank and see about the oil....” Joe looked at him, puzzled. “Got to take him to the hospital,” Charlie said. We knew that meant another trip of 140 miles. “Damned if you do,” Joe said. “I’ll get somebody to go.” I supposed after the all night trip under such conditions Brown would go to bed but an hour later when I went to the store for some small purchase a woman climbed out of a pickup truck and with three small children, came in. She lived on her ranch 60 miles away and had come to buy her month’s supply of provisions—a full load for the truck. When she paid her bill she nodded toward her brood: “Charlie, those kids look like brush Indians with all that hair....” Charlie got scissors and comb and went to work. Before he had swept out the shorn locks Ben Brandt came in, holding his jaw. “Feels like a stamp mill,” he groaned. “Haven’t slept in a week. Be dead by the time I get to Barstow.” It was 125 miles to Barstow and Ben was waiting for a ride with someone going that way. Charlie went behind the counter, returned with forceps, opening and closing the jaws of the instrument two or three times as if in practice and then he turned to the sufferer: “You understand it’s against the law for me to use these things. In a pinch—” “To hell with the law,” Ben snapped. “Yank it out!” Charlie took a chair to the back porch. Ben sat down and with a vice-like arm about Ben’s head, the forceps went in and the tooth came out. I went outside and sat on the bench with a better understanding of Shoshone and people and values which come only from friendships closely knitted and help unselfishly given.