Jacksonville proved to be not only a pleasant place of residence but an excellent field for my professional work. The climate was almost germ-proof, and it was a real pleasure to practice the semi-military surgery characteristic of my field of labor. Primary union was my speciality in those days, and I used to get results the memory of which sometimes makes me blush for those I occasionally get with our modern aseptic and antiseptic methods. No matter how much my patients might shoot or carve each other, any fellow who had life enough left in him to crawl or be carried off the field of battle, usually got well. Beyond accompanying an occasional prospecting party, largely for recreation but partly in my professional capacity, I did but little in the way of mining. My practice gave me plenty to do, and was lucrative enough as practices go, so I soon settled down to as routine a life as my curious and lively surroundings would permit. I was sitting in that portion of the Tuolumne House yclept by courtesy “the office,” quite late one evening, listening to the quaint talk of my miner friends and marvelling on the quantity of fluid the human body could lose by way of expectoration and still live, when I was recalled to a realization of the fact that I was a practitioner of medicine, by a voice at the hotel door. “Say, Doc, kin I see y’u a minute?” Looking up I saw standing in the doorway one of the boys, who was familiarly known as Toppy, his States’ name being Ike Dexter. Toppy motioned for me to come out on the porch, and impressed by his gravity of manner and earnestness of gesticulation, I hastened to comply. “What is it, Toppy?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “thar’s one uv my friends whut’s bin an’ got hisself hurt, an’ I want y’u ter come an’ fix him up. He’s a very parti’cler friend, an’ I’d like ter hev yer do yer best on him. Ye needn’t say nuthin’ ter the boys about it, jes’ now, Doc.” “Very well, Toppy, I’ll go with you, but what kind of an accident has befallen your friend?” I asked. “Oh, I dunno ez ye could jes’ call it a accident, Doc. It’s jest a little shootin’ scrape, that’s all, an’ I reckon ye’d better take some ’stracters erlong.” In accordance with the honest miner’s suggestion I did take some bullet extractors with me.