Blake drank the contents of the glass. The host smiled, bowed, and
withdrew. Then there followed another whispered conversation.
"Tuck it all right, did he?"
"Like a lamb. He'll be all right in a half-hour from now."
During fifteen or twenty minutes Blake lay quietly in bed. Then he got
up, dressed himself noiselessly, arranged the bed covers to resemble
the form of a man, took his saddlebags, stepped out at a back door,
went to the stable, saddled his horse, mounted and rode up to a window
and looked into the room which he had occupied. Cattle were tramping
about the yard, and the noise made by the horse attracted no attention.
He took a position so that he could, unobserved, see all that passed
within the room. The "doctor" and the old woman soon entered. They made
no attempt to speak in low tones.
"Whar is his saddlebags?" the woman asked.
"Under his head, I reckon. Snatch off the covers. He won't wake up."
The old woman pulled off the covers and uttered a cry of surprise.
Blake tapped on the window glass.
"Say, Doc," he called, "bring me the rest of that morphine. You see,
I have been a morphine eater for a number of years, but am trying to
quit. Your dose came in pretty handy, for I was in a bad fix. I am all
right now, and am much obliged to you. Good-night."
Less than a week from that time the "doctor" and his wife were in jail,
charged with the murder of a traveler. They were hanged at Greenville
last September.
A COMMERCIAL RIP-SNORTER.
Several years ago I was the editor and proprietor of the New Ebeneezer
_Plow Point_. It was a weekly publication, and, with its name as well
as with its class of matter, appealed to the farmers, and danced a
pandering jig to the shrill whistle of their prejudices. One day E. Sim
Nolan, a prominent man in the community, came into my office and said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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