a rock at
him. Yet it gave me an idea."

"What was it?" they asked eagerly.

"I went down to his shop the next day, when he was alone, and I was
feeling mighty bad, and I got hold of his pigtail and I allowed I'd
stuff it down his throat if he didn't tell me what he meant. Then he
took a piece of punk and lit it, and put it under my nose, and, darn my
skin, gentlemen, you migh'n't believe me, but in a minute I felt better,
and after a whiff or two I was all right."

"Was it pow'ful strong, Cy?" asked the inexperienced one.

"No," said Parker, "and that's just what's got me. It was a sort o'
dreamy, spicy smell, like a hot night. But as I couldn't go 'round 'mong
you boys with a lighted piece o' punk in my hand, ez if I was settin'
off Fourth of July firecrackers, I asked him if he couldn't fix me up
suthin' in another shape that would be handier to use when I was took
bad, and I'd reckon to pay him for it like ez I'd pay for any other
patent medicine. So he fixed me up this."

He put his hand in his pocket, and drew out a small red paper which,
when opened, disclosed a pink powder. It was gravely passed around the
group.

"Why, it smells and tastes like ginger," said one.

"It is only ginger!" said another scornfully.

"Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn't," returned Cy Parker stoutly. "Mebbe
ut's only my fancy. But if it's the sort o' stuff to bring on that
fancy, and that fancy CURES me, it's all the same. I've got about two
dollars' worth o' that fancy or that ginger, and I'm going to stick to
it. You hear me!" And he carefully put it back in his pocket.

At which criticisms and gibes broke forth. If he (Cy Parker), a white
man, was going to "demean himself" by consulting a Chinese quack, he'd
better buy up a lot o' idols and stand 'em up around his cabin. If he
had that sort o' confidences with See Yup, he ought to go to work with
him on his cheap tailings, and be fumigated all at the same time. If
he'd been smoking an opium pipe, instead of smelling punk, he ought to
be man enough to confess it. Yet it was noticeable that they were
all very anxious to examine the packet again, but Cy Parker was alike
indifferent to demand or entreaty.

A few days later I saw Abe Wynford, one of the party, coming out of See
Yup's wash-house. He muttered something in passing about the infamous
delay in sending home his washing, but did not linger long in
conversation. The next day I met another miner AT the wash-house, but HE