“Doc” Hopkins, or “Hoppy Doc” as he was irreverently dubbed along the river, was Dust’s only rival. The competition was bitter, and many untimely ends were ascribed by each of them to the other’s criminal ignorance. Hoppy Doc often told, with great relish, a story of Cornelia Kibbins, Dust’s first wife, alleging that after a year of tempestuous married life, she had fled to her father’s home late one winter night for refuge. Her irate parent refused her an asylum. He had felt greatly outraged when the wedding took place and never wanted to see his daughter again. In answer to the plaintive midnight cry at his door, he leaned out of a second story window and delivered a torrent of invective. As he closed the window he shouted, “Dust thou art, and unto Dust shalt thou return!” The suppliant disappeared, and evidently the worm turned, for Dust was a physical wreck for a month afterwards. Old man Kibbins subsequently declared that while his daughter “was a damn fool, she had fight’n blood in ’er, an’ the Doc ’ad better look out fer squalls.” Dust was guyed good-naturedly by the occupants of the platform, as he went into the store to get some fine cut. “What’s that you’ve got out there between them buggy thills, Doc?” queried Hyatt. Bill winked at me and asked him if he had driven by his garden lately—a delicate reference to the cemetery, intended to be sarcastic. Another stove pipe hat was brought by “Pop” Wilkins, an octogenarian. He also wore it jammed well down behind his ears. The old man climbed painfully up the steps with his hickory cane, and dropped into a chair that Hyatt brought out of the store for him. He placed the ancient tile under it, mopped his bald head with a large red bandanna, and looked wistfully beyond the river. Pop had been afflicted with intermittent ague for several years. He was once a preacher and a temperance advocate. He was placed on the superannuated list by the Methodist conference, and had finally been expunged as a backslider. He fell from grace and yielded to the lure of strong waters. Once, after he had over indulged for several weeks, he went and sat in sad reflection on the bank of the gloomy river at night. Out of its depths came strange six footed beasts and multicolored crawling things that terrified Pop and drove remorse into his soul. Since that eventful night he had been more moderate, but he was still in danger, and it was a question as to whether old age, ague, or J. Barleycorn would get him first.