big brown gelding that carried Jackson's 190 pounds
with ease. The horses all looked as if there had been "something doing,"
and they were hurried to the stables. The ladies laughed and screamed
for a season, as seems necessary for young ladies, and then departed,
leaving us in peace. Jackson filled his pipe before remarking:--

"I've been over the ridge into the Dunkard settlement, and they have the
cholera there to beat the band. Joe Siegel lost sixty hogs in three
days, and there are not ten well hogs in two miles. What do you think of
that?"

"That means a hard 'fight mit Siegel,'" said Kyrle.

"It ought to mean a closer quarantine on this side of the ridge," said
I, "and you must fumigate your clothes before you appear before your
swine, Jackson. It's more likely to be swine plague than cholera at this
time of the year, but it's just as bad; one can hardly tell the
difference, and we must look sharp."

"How does the contagion travel, Doctor?"

"On horseback, when such chumps as you can be found. You probably have
some millions of germs up your sleeve now, or, more likely, on your
back, and I wouldn't let you go into my hog pen for a $2000 note. I'm so
well quarantined that I don't much fear contagion; but there's always
danger from infected dust. The wind blows it about, and any mote may be
an automobile for a whole colony of bacteria, which may decide to picnic
in my piggery. This dry weather is bad for us, and if we get heavy winds
from off the ridge, I'm going to whistle for rain."

"I say, Williams, when you came out here I thought you a tenderfoot,
sure enough, who was likely to pay money for experience; but, by the
jumping Jews! you've given us natives cards and spades."

"I _was_ a tenderfoot so far as practical experience goes, but I tried
to use the everyday sense which God gave me, and I find that's about all
a man needs to run a business like this."

"You run it all right, for returns, and that's what we are after; and
I'm beginning to catch on. I want you to tell me, before Kyrle here,
why you gave me that bull two years ago."

"What's the matter with the bull, Jackson? Isn't he all right?"

"Sure he's all right, and as fine as silk; but why did you give him to
me? Why didn't you keep him for yourself?"

"Well, Bill, I thought you would like him, and we were neighbors, and--"

"You thought I would save you the trouble of keeping him, didn't you?"

"Well, perhaps that did have some influenc