There was a sudden silence in the bar, and the doctor, putting down his glass, continued with slight professional precision:—­

“You see, the Chinese know nothing of anatomy from personal observation.  Autopsies and dissection are against their superstitions, which declare the human body sacred, and are consequently never practiced.”

There was a slight movement of inquiring interest among the party, and Cy Parker, after a meaning glance at the others, went on half aggressively, half apologetically:—­

“In course, they ain’t surgeons like you, Doc, but that don’t keep them from having their own little medicines, just as dogs eat grass, you know.  Now I want to put it to you, as a fa’r-minded man, if you mean ter say that, jest because those old women who sarve out yarbs and spring medicines in families don’t know anything of anatomy, they ain’t fit to give us their simple and nat’ral medicines?”

“But the Chinese medicines are not simple or natural,” said the doctor coolly.

“Not simple?” echoed the party, closing round him.

“I don’t mean to say,” continued the doctor, glancing around at their eager, excited faces with an appearance of wonder, “that they are positively noxious, unless taken in large quantities, for they are not drugs at all, but I certainly should not call them ‘simple.’  Do you know what they principally are?”

“Well, no,” said Parker cautiously, “perhaps not exactly.”

“Come a little closer, and I’ll tell you.”

Not only Parker’s head but the others were bent over the counter.  Dr. Duchesne uttered a few words in a tone inaudible to the rest of the company.  There was a profound silence, broken at last by Abe Wynford’s voice:—­

“Ye kin pour me out about three fingers o’ whiskey, Barkeep.  I’ll take it straight.”

“Same to me,” said the others.

The men gulped down their liquor; two of them quietly passed out.  The doctor wiped his lips, buttoned his coat, and began to draw on his riding-gloves.

“I’ve heerd,” said Poker Jack of Shasta, with a faint smile on his white face, as he toyed with the last drops of liquor in his glass, “that the darned fools sometimes smell punk as a medicine, eh?”

“Yes, that’s comparatively decent,” said the doctor reflectively.  “It’s only sawdust mixed with a little gum and formic acid.”

“Formic acid?  Wot’s that?”

“A very peculiar acid secreted by ants.  It is supposed to be used by them offensively in warfare—­just as the skunk, eh?”