"Black Jack, the barkeep, don't know this party from a cross-L steer; he gets them mandates from Peets, but it never does strike Black Jack that this yere is the dyin' sport allooded to. In darkness that a-way, Black Jack tosses a glass on the bar an' shoves the bottle. It shore looks like that failin' shorthorn is goin' to quit winner, them recooperatifs. "But, son, he's interrupted. He's filled his glass--an' he's been plenty free about it--an' stands thar with the bottle in his hand, when two guns bark, an' one bullet smashes the glass an' the other the bottle where this person is holdin' it. No, this artillery practice don't stampede me none; I'm plumb aware it's Doc Peets' derringers from the go-off. Peets stands in the door, one of his little pup-guns in each hand. "'Which I likes your aplomb!' says Black Jack to Peets, as he swabs off the bar in a peevish way. 'I makes it my boast that I'm the best-nachered barkeep between the Colorado an' the Rio Grande, an' yet I'm free to confess, sech plays chafes me. May I ask,' an' Black Jack stops wipin' the bar an' turns on Peets plumb p'lite, 'what your idee is in thus shootin' your way into a commercial affair in which you has no interest?' "'This ycre bibulous person is my patient,' says Peets, a heap haughty. 'I preescribes no licker; an' them preescriptions is goin' to be filled, you bet! if I has to fill 'em with a gun. Whatever do you-all reckon a medical practitioner is? Do you figger he's a Mexican, an' that his diagnosises, that a-way, don't go? I notifies you this mornin' as I stands yere gettin' my third drink, that if this outcast comes trackin' in with demands for nose-paint, to remember he's sick an' throw him out on his head. An' yere's how I'm obeyed!' "Which, of course, this explains things to Black Jack, an' he sees his inadvertences. He comes out from behind the bar to where this sick maverick has done fainted in the confoosion, an' collars him an' sets him on a char. "'Doc,' says Black Jack, when he's got the wilted gent planted firm an' safe, 'I tenders my regrets. Havin' neither brands nor y'earmarks to guide by, I never recognizes this person as your invalid at all; none whatever. I'd shore bent a gun on him an' harassed him back into his lair, as you requests, if I suspects his identity. To show I'm on the squar', Doc, I'll do this party any voylence, even at this late hour, which you think will make amends.' "'Your apol'gy is accepted,' says Peets, but still haughty; 'I descerns how you gets maladroit through errors over which you has no control. As to this person, who's so full of stealthy cunnin', he's all right. So long as he don't get no licker, no voylence is called for in his case.' An' with that Peets conducts his patient, who's come to ag'in, back to his reservation.