Bunch Grass Part 29

"'We are greatly honoured by the presence amongst us of Professor Adam Chawner, the eminent surgeon and pathologist----'"

"How's that?" demanded Dan.

"Surgeon an' path--ologist."

"What's path--ologist?"

Pete expectorated a contempt for ignorance which he was too polite to put into words. Then he said suavely--

"A pathologist is a kind o' pathfinder. Comes from the Greek, I reckon: _path--logus_--skilled in finding noo paths to knowledge.

See!"

"If you ain't a walkin' dictionary!"

"It comes nateral to me," Pete admitted modestly. He continued--

"'The Professor, instead of taking a well-earned holiday in our land of roses and sunshine, proposes to study at first hand the micrococci of a deadly disease which, we are given to understand, is peculiar to this part of California....'"

"Never heard of a deadly disease peculiar to these parts," said Jimmie thoughtfully,--"always exceptin' Annie-dominie."

"'Peculiar to this part of California,'" continued Pete, "'and likely, given certain conditions, to develop into an epidemic as terrible and mysterious as the sleeping sickness.'"

"Sleepin' sickness? What's that?"

"Dan, yer ignorance is disgraceful. Sleepin' sickness is common as hives amongst the cannibals. After a square meal o' missionary, the critters fall asleep, and they don't never wake up neither. Serve 'em right, too."

"Go on, Pete."

Pete, with a thick thumb upon the right line, went on--

"'The Professor's researches here may prove of vital importance. And, speaking for our fellow-citizens, we venture to a.s.sure this distinguished pathologist of our cordial desire to co-operate, so far as it may be possible, in the important work which he has undertaken.'"

"Slings words, that feller," remarked Jimmie. "But what in thunder is Perfessor Adam Chawner a-doin' in Paradise?"

"Come, mebbee, to see you rope steers," suggested Dan.

"I shall aim not to disappoint him," replied Jimmie. "All the same, I ask you fellers straight: Has he come here to--work?"

"Meanin'?"

"If this yere deadly disease is on the rampage I, for one, 'd like to know it."

"Me too," drawled Dan.

A silence followed as Jimmie coiled up his rope. Pete began to remove his boots. Dan, very furtively, placed a finger upon his pulse. Then he said with constraint--

"Boys, I don't want any joshin'. I've not felt extry spry lately."

"Same here," said Jimmie quickly.

Pete smiled sarcastically.

"A little bird tole me," he remarked slowly, looking at Dan, "as how Miss Mary Willing was seen a-buggy-ridin' las' Sunday with Jack Rice."

"It's true," said Dan, shortly. "Me and Mame is at outs. If I was dyin', I couldn't forgive her!"

"You don't say?" cried Jimmie. "Wal, Miss Edna Parkinson an' yours truly ain't goin' ter speak never no more, neither. That hound Ikey Greenberg has cut in with a noo Prince Albert coat. It's upset me considerable."

"My trouble ain't heart only," said Dan.

"Stomach?" suggested Pete.

"All overish, mostly."

"You ain't bin readin' the advertis.e.m.e.nts o' quack doctors, hev ye?"

"Not since I was twenty. They did give me fits at one time. Boys"--he began to scratch himself furiously--"I've a feelin' as if I was afire inside."

"Maw used ter give me sarsaparilla," said Jimmie.

"My folks," observed Pete, "never tuk nothin' but castor ile. Must ha'

downed a barrel o' that when I was a kid."

"This thing is drivin' me crazy," said Dan.

"Wal," replied Pete deliberately, "I know what I'd do, and I'd do it quick. This yere Professor is on the ranch, and he's a dandy. After the _rodeo_, you jest sachay up to him an' tell him what you've tole us. If he don't take the kinks outer yer, he's a fraud. See!"

"Gosh," exclaimed Dan, "I'll do it!"

They turned in.

The Professor next day watched the _rodeo_ from a platform erected near the biggest of our corrals. This was his first visit to California, and he was mightily impressed by the skill and vigour of the vaqueroes. To Ajax he declared that he was amazed to find such splendid specimens in that particular locality. Ajax smiled.

"We have not much," he said, "but we feel that we have a right to expect high health. We used to say," he added, "that sickness was unknown in our hills till a wise doctor settled here from the East."

The Professor frowned.

"I rose at six," he said austerely. "I made a microscopical examination of the water in your new spring, which rises, I venture to remind you, through soil which is undoubtedly diatomaceous."

"That sounds awful."

"Diatoms in a fossilised condition are silicious, and they are to be found in Virginia, in Bermuda, and here."

"Professor, I am an ignoramus."

"Then it is my duty to inform you that the man or woman who drinks water from that spring is swallowing millions of tiny flint knives, hard as diamond dust--indeed, diatomaceous earth is used commercially as a polishing powder."