ew minor touches of Bad Land
vernacular from your vocabulary."

"I've gotcher--swipe me!" grinned the Flopper. "Me at school! Say,
wouldn't that put a smile on de maps of de harness bulls, an' de dips,
an' de lags doin' spaces up de river!"

"Quite so," admitted Doc Madison pleasantly.

"You won't laugh when I get through with you," remarked Helena, her eyes
on the curl of smoke from her cigarette.

"There's just one more thing," went on Doc Madison, "and I'm through
with you, Flopper. Don't come down there looking like a skate--that's
too raw. Get new clothes and a shave--and keep shaved. And from the
minute you buy your ticket, you keep your bones, or whatever a
beneficent nature has given you in place of them, out of joint--see?"

"I'm hip," declared the Flopper--and the dog-like admiration for Doc
Madison burned in his eyes. "Say, Doc, youse are de--"

"Never mind, Flopper," Madison cut in brightly. "It's getting late. Now,
Harry, about you. You've got a name, I believe. Evans, isn't it?
Yes--well, that will do. Now, don't kill yourself at it, but the more
you work your dope needle overtime before you start, and the harder you
cough when you first land there the better. We've got to have variety,
you know. You're a physical wreck with the folks back home sending the
casket and trimmings after you on the next train in care of the station
agent."

"I guess," coughed Pale Face Harry, with a sickly smile, "I look the
part."

"You certainly do," said Helena cheerfully, beating a tattoo with her
heels on the end of the couch.

Pale Face Harry scowled.

"I ain't no artist with the paint," he sniffed.

"I don't paint," said Helena sweetly. "It's rouge."

"Are you through?" inquired Doc Madison patiently. "Because, if you are,
I'll go on. When the train whistles for Needley, Harry, you put the soft
pedal on the dope--that ought to help some. And then you begin to taper
that cough off and become a cure--that's all."

"I ain't like the Flopper," said Pale Face Harry ruefully. "I told you
once I can't stop the hack, and I ask you again how'm I going to?"

"Have faith in the Patriarch," suggested Helena innocently.

"You close your trap!" exclaimed Pale Face Harry savagely; then, to
Madison: "Go on, Doc--it's up to you."

"No," said Doc Madison coolly, "it's up to you. You've got to try, and
if you can't stop altogether you can make yourself scarce when you feel
the fit coming on--you won't have to climb up o