"He could send out some stuff--if he was sober enough; he's sure wise
on medicine."
Weary made him a cigarette. "Well, it's me for Dry Lake," he said,
crisply. "I reckon Patsy can hang on till I get back; can poison
doesn't do the business inside several hours, and he hasn't been sick
long. He was all right when Happy Jack hit camp about two o'clock.
I'll be back by dark--I'll ride Glory." He swung up on the nearest
horse, which happened to be Chip's and raced out to the saddle bunch a
quarter of a mile away. The Happy Family watched him go and called
after him, urging him unnecessarily to speed.
Weary did not waste time having the bunch corralled but rode in among
the horses, his rope down and ready for business. Glory stared
curiously, tossed his crimpled, silver mane, dodged a second too late
and found himself caught.
It was unusual, this interruption just when he was busy cropping sweet
grasses and taking his ease, but he supposed there was some good reason
for it; at any rate he submitted quietly to being saddled and merely
nipped Weary's shoulder once and struck out twice with an ivory-white,
daintily rounded hoof--and Weary was grateful for the docile mood he
showed.
He mounted hurriedly without a word of praise or condemnation, and his
silence was to Glory more unusual than being roped and saddled on the
range. He seemed to understand that the stress was great, and fairly
bolted up the long, western slope of the creek bottom straight toward
the slant of the sun.
For two miles he kept the pace unbroken, though the way was not of the
smoothest and there was no trail to follow. Straight away to the west,
with fifteen miles of hills and coulees between, lay Dry Lake; and in
Dry Lake lived the one man in the country who might save Patsy.
"Old Dock" was a land-mark among old-timers. The oldest pioneer found
Dock before him among the Indians and buffalo that ran riot over the
wind-brushed prairie where now the nation's beef feeds quietly. Why he
was there no man could tell; he was a fresh-faced young Frenchman with
much knowledge of medicine and many theories, and a reticence
un-French. From the Indians he learned to use strange herbs that
healed almost magically the ills of man; from the rough out-croppings
of civilization he learned to swallow vile whiskey in great gulps, and
to thirst always for more.
So he grew old while the West was yet young, until Dry Lake, which grew
up around him, could not remember him as any but a white-bearded,
stooped, shuffling old man who spoke a queer jargon and was always just
getting drunk or sober. When he was sober his medicines never failed
to cure; when he was drunk he could not be induced to prescribe, so
that men trusted his wisdom at all times and tolerated his infirmities,
and looked upon him with amused proprietorship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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