lingered so long on some trifling details that I finally left him there
alone with See Yup. When I called upon Poker Jack of Shasta, there was a
singular smell of incense in HIS cabin, which he attributed to the very
resinous quality of the fir logs he was burning. I did not attempt
to probe these mysteries by any direct appeal to See Yup himself: I
respected his reticence; indeed, if I had not, I was quite satisfied
that he would have lied to me. Enough that his wash-house was well
patronized, and he was decidedly "getting on."

It might have been a month afterwards that Dr. Duchesne was setting a
broken bone in the settlement, and after the operation was over, had
strolled into the Palmetto Saloon. He was an old army surgeon, much
respected and loved in the district, although perhaps a little feared
for the honest roughness and military precision of his speech. After he
had exchanged salutations with the miners in his usual hearty fashion,
and accepted their invitation to drink, Cy Parker, with a certain
affected carelessness which did not, however, conceal a singular
hesitation in his speech, began:--

"I've been wantin' to ask ye a question, Doc,--a sort o' darned fool
question, ye know,--nothing in the way of consultation, don't you see,
though it's kin er in the way o' your purfeshun. Sabe?"

"Go on, Cy," said the doctor good-humoredly, "this is my dispensary
hour."

"Oh! it ain't anything about symptoms, Doc, and there ain't anything the
matter with me. It's only just to ask ye if ye happened to know anything
about the medical practice of these yer Chinamen?"

"I don't know," said the doctor bluntly, "and I don't know ANYBODY who
does."

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