“Nothing of the tall.  I run it down.  I did, for a God’s fact.  It’s like this:  three months ago I crep’ into this burg lookin’ for a match, but the professions was overcrowded, there bein’ fourteen lawyers, a half-dozen doctors, a chiropodist, and forty-three bartenders here ahead of me, not to speak of a tooth-tinker.  That there dentist thought he could sprint.  He come from some Eastern college and his pa had grub-staked him to a kit of tools and sent him out here to work his way into the confidences and cavities of the Idahobos.

“Well, sir, the minute I seen him I realized he was my custard.  He wore sofy cushions on his shoulders, and his coat was cut in at the back.  He rolled up his pants, too, and sometimes he sweetened the view in a vi’lent, striped sweater.  I watered at the mouth and picked my teeth over him—­he was that succ’lent.

“He’d been lookin’ down on these natives and kiddin’ ’em ever since he arrived, and once a week, reg’lar, he tried to frame a race so’s he could wear his runnin’-pants and be a hero.  I had no trouble fixin’ things.  He was a good little runner, and he done his best; but when I breasted the tape I won a quick-claim deed to his loose change, to a brand-new office over a drug-store, and to enough nickel-plated pliers for a wire-tapper.  I staked him to a sleeper ticket, then I moved into his quarters.  The tools didn’t have no directions on ’em, but I’ve figgered out how to use most of ’em.”

“I gather that this here practice that you’re buildin’ up ain’t exactly remunerative,” I said to Mike.

“Not yet it ain’t, but I’m widenin’ out.  There ain’t a day passes that I don’t learn something.  I was out drummin’ up a little trade when your groans convinced me that somebody in here had a jumpin’ toothache.  If you ain’t busy, mebbe you can help me get a patient.”

This particular saloon had about wore out its welcome with me, so I was game for any enterprise, and I allowed a little patient-huntin’ would prob’ly do me good.  I drawed my six gun and looked her over.

“It’s a new sport, but I bet I’ll take to it,” said I.  “What d’you do, crease ’em or cripple ’em?”

“Pshaw!  Put up that hearse ticket,” Mike told me.  “Us doctors don’t take human life, we save it.”

“I thought you said you was practisin’ on Injuns.”

“Injuns is human.  For a fact!  I’ve learned a heap in this business.  Not that I wouldn’t bust one if I needed him, but it ain’t necessary.  Come, I’ll show you.”

This here town had more heathens than whites in it, and before we’d gone a block I seen a buck Injun and his squaw idlin’ along, lookin’ into the store winders.  The buck was a hungry, long-legged feller, and when we neared him Mike said to me: 

“Hist!  There’s one.  I’ll slip up and get him from behind.  You grab him if he runs.”

This method of buildin’ up a dental practice struck me as some strange, but Butters was a queer guy and this was sort of a rough town.  When he got abreast of Mr. Lo, Mike reached out and garnered him by the neck.  The Injun pitched some, but Mike eared him down finally, and when I come up I seen that one side of the lad’s face was swelled up something fearful.