“Ye see, Doc,” said Toppy, by way of preparatory explanation of the case I was about to see, “this yere friend of mine hez bin down in ’Frisco fer a spell, an’ might hev staid thar a good while longer, only some feller picked a row with him. Thar wuz a duel, an’ duels ain’t so pop’lar down ’Frisco way ez they useter wuz, ’specially when somebody gits hurt. A real bad accident happened ter th’ uther feller, an’ he passed in his checks. Jim--that’s my friend--got a ball in his thigh, whut stuck thar, and ez he didn’t hev much time to hunt fer a doctor, he jest come up hyar, whar its kinder quiet like, an’ we thort we’d hev y’u sorter look arter the thing. Ye see, Jim won’t keer to git ’round much fer a few weeks--not ’till that little accident gits blowed over”--and Toppy’s eyes gleamed humorously. My friend led me down to the river bank, and pushing aside a clump of willows revealed a small, rudely constructed row-boat. “Ah!” I said, as I took my seat in the somewhat insecure-looking and cranky little craft, “It is evident that you have taken your friend to your own cabin.” Toppy, as I well knew, had the only abode on the opposite bank of the river, where, high up on the hillside, in full though somewhat distant view of the little town, he had built a small but neat cabin, which nestled in the bosom of the hill, looking not unlike a child’s playhouse as seen from the town proper. “Yep,” replied the miner, “thar’s whar he is. It aint best ter depen’ too much on pop’larity, ye know, Doc, an’ Jim’ll be a little safer over thar than in town. Nobody goes ter my place--less’n I invite ’em,” and Toppy grinned sardonically. I recalled the fate of a poor devil who did go to his cabin without an invitation--from Toppy--in the early days of his housekeeping on the hillside, when a more or less charming little Mexican half-breed damsel was said to have presided over Toppy’s domestic affairs. Being averse to the discussion of other people’s family matters, I had never conversed with my miner friend on that delicate subject. To tell the truth, there seemed to be very little encouragement for gossip in Jacksonville--town-talk was too direct a cut to the little collection of white head-boards that decorated a small plateau just outside the town. All my information on such subjects, was therefore derived from more subtle and less dangerous airy rumor. The river was quite low, and a few vigorous pulls from Toppy’s stalwart arms brought us to the opposite shore, from which I could see, far up the hillside, the gleaming white walls of the miner’s rude little home, where lay my prospective patient.