“Next doctor that come along was a ostypath.”  Curly took a chew of tobacco, and paused a moment reflectively.

“I said the first feller drifted into vet’inary lines, didn’t I?” he resumed.  “Well, the ostypath did, too.  Didn’t you never hear about that?  Why, he ostypathed a horse!”

“Did what?” asked Tom Osby sitting up; for hitherto there had seemed no need to listen attentively.

“Yes, sir,” he went on, “he ostypathed a horse for us.  The boys they gambled about two thousand dollars on that horse over at Socorro.  It was a cross-eyed horse, too.”

“What’s that?” Doc Tomlinson objected.  “There never was such a thing as a cross-eyed horse.”

“Oh, there wasn’t, wasn’t there?” said Curly.  “Well, now, my friend, when you talk that-a-way, you simply show me how much you don’t know about horses.  This here Bar T horse was as cross-eyed as a saw-horse, until we got him ostypathed.  But, of course, if you don’t believe what I say, there’s no use tellin’ you this story at all.”

“Oh, go on, go on,” McKinney spoke up, “don’t pay no attention to Doc.”

“Well,” Curly resumed, “that there horse was knowed constant on this range for over three years.  He was a outlaw, with cream mane and tail, and a pinto map of Europe, Asia, and Africa wrote all over his ribs.  Run?  Why, that horse could run down a coyote as a moral pastime.  We used him to catch jack rabbits with between meals.  It wasn’t no trouble for him to run.  The trouble was to tell when he was goin’ to stop runnin’.  Sometimes it was a good while before the feller ridin’ him could get him around to where he begun to run.  He run in curves natural, and he handed out a right curve or a left one, just as he happened to feel, same as the feller dealin’ faro, and just as easy.

“Tom Redmond, on the Bar T, he got this horse from a feller by the name of Hasenberg, that brought in a bunch of has-beens and outlaws, and allowed to distribute ’em in this country.  Hasenberg was a foreign gent that looked a good deal like Whiteman, our distinguished feller-citizen here.  He was cross-eyed hisself, body and soul.  There wasn’t a straight thing about him.  We allowed that maybe this Pinto caballo got cross-eyed from associatin’ with old Hasenberg, who was strictly on the bias, any way you figured.”

“You ain’t so bad, after all, Curly,” said Dan Andersen, sitting up.  “You’re beginning now to hit the human interest part.  You ought to be a reg’lar contributor.”

“Shut up!” said Curly.  “Now Tom Redmond, he took to this here Pinto horse from havin’ seen him jump the corral fence several times, and start floatin’ off across the country for a eight or ten mile sasshay without no special encouragement.  He hired three Castilian busters to operate on Pinto, and he got so he could be rode occasional, but every one allowed they never did see any horse just like him.  He was the most aggravatinest