The magnetic healer’s shrewd eyes glistened and shifted behind his spectacles; the horizontal wrinkles in his forehead, under his bald pate, drew gloomily together as Mr. Payson poured out the story of his trouble. For a time the doctor said nothing. Then he took a vial full of yellow liquid from his table, carried it to the window, held it to the light, examined it solemnly and put it back. He sat down again and looked Mr. Payson over. Then he tilted back in his chair, stuck a pair of dirty thumbs in the armholes of his plaid waistcoat, and said, "H’m!" Finally, his thin lips parted in a grisly smile showing his blackened teeth. His victim watched, anxiously waiting, with his two hands on the head of his cane. The gloom appeared to affect his spirits; he seemed ready to expect the worst. Doctor Masterson took off his spectacles and wiped them on a yellow silk handkerchief. "It looks pretty serious to me," he said, "but I calculate I can fix you up. It’ll cost some money, though. Ye see, it’s this way: I’m controlled by an Indian medicine-man named Hasandoka and his band o’ sperits. Now, in order to bring this here psychic force to bear on your case, it’s bound to take considerable o’ my time and their time, and I’ll have to go to work and neglect my reg’lar patients. It takes it out o’ me, and I can’t do but just so much or I peter out. I’ll go into a trance and see what Hasandoka has to say, and then you’ll be in a condition to know what to decide. O’ course, you understand, I ain’t no doctor and don’t claim to be, but I got control of a powerful psychic force that guides me in my treatment, and I never knew it to fail yet. If my band o’ sperits can’t help you, nobody can, and you better go to work and make your will right away. See?" Mr. Payson saw the argument and manifested a desire to proceed with the investigation. The doctor loosened his celluloid collar and closed his eyes. In a minute or two he appeared to fall asleep, breathing heavily. Then, through him, the great Hasandoka spoke, in the guttural dialect such as is supposed to be affected by the American Indian, using flowery metaphors punctuated by grunts.