the abdomen," Champers groaned. "But it was from what was
comin' you saved me. I've never been sick a day in my life and I've had
little sympathy for you and your line, and then to be knocked down so
quick by a little whiffet like Smith and roll over like a log at the first
blow!"

"You're in luck. Most men in your line ought to have been knocked down a
good many times before now," the doctor declared. "How did this happen?"

"I settled with Smith and made him sign everything up to a hog-tight
contract. Then he started in to abuse me till I got tired and told him I'd
just got back from Ohio and a thing or two I saw there. Then he suddenly
belted me and, against all rules of the game, kicked me when I was down,
and left me, threatening to come back and finish me. That's what you saved
me from."

"Champers, my old buggy is like a rocking chair. Let me take you home
with me for a few days while you are wearing patches on your head," Horace
Carey suggested.

Darley Champers stared at his helper in surprise. Then he said slowly:

"Say, Doc, I've hated you a good many years for doin' just such tricks for
folks. It was my cussedness made me do it, I reckon. I'd like to get out
of town a little while. That joint of Wyker's has seen more'n one fellow
laid out, and some of 'em went down Big Wolf later, and some of 'em fell
into Little Wolf and never come out. It's a hole, I tell you. And Smith is
a devil tonight."

On the homeward way Dr. Carey said quietly:

"By the way, Champers, I saw you at Cloverdale, Ohio, last week."

Champers did not start nor seem surprised as he replied:

"Yes, I seen you, but I didn't want to speak to nobody right then."

"No?" Dr. Carey questioned.

"No. I've got hold enough of Smith now to make him afraid of me if I'd
turn loose. I'd a made money by doin' it, too. Good clean money. That's
why he's gettin' good and drunk to beat me up again tonight, maybe."

"Well, why don't you tighten up on him? Why let a scoundrel like that run
free?" Carey inquired.

"Because it might drag Leigh Shirley's name into the muss. And I'm no
devourer of widders and orphans; I'm a humane man, and I'll let Smith run
till his tether snaps and he falls over the precipice and breaks his neck
for hisself. Besides I'm not sure now whether he's a agent, representin'
some principal, or the principal representin' hisself. And in that case
I'd have to deal the cards different for him, and them he'd do harm to."

"