man she married."

"Nonsense!" he said, but going home that night Doctor Jim carried
the gun where he could get at it quickly.

"My God!" he muttered with grim humor; "no wonder Juno didn't want
me to come."

It was only a few days later that Doctor Jim came out of Lum Chapman's
house and paused in the path looking up Wolf Run. Jerry Lipps's sister
lived half a mile above and he had just heard that her little daughter
was down with the fever. Jerry might be staying with the sister, but
Doctor Jim's duty was now up there and, in spite of the warnings given
him, he did not hesitate. The woman stared when he told who he was and
why he had come, but she nodded and pointed to the bed where the child
lay. He put his pistol on the bed, thrust a thermometer into the little
girl's mouth and began taking her pulse. A hand swept the pistol from
the bed and, when he turned around, about all he could think was:
"How extraordinary!"

Jerry, red with rage and drink, was at the kitchen door fumbling at the
butt of his pistol, while his sister had Doctor Jim's gun levelled at her
brother's heart.

"You can't tech him," she said coolly, "an' if you pull that gun out an
inch furder I'll kill ye as shore as thar's a God in heaven." And at that
moment the door opened and Pleasant Trouble swung in on his crutch and
grinned. Doctor Jim then heard the tongue-lashing of his life. The woman's
volubility was like a mill-race, and her command of vitriolic epithets was
beyond his ken. She recited what Juno had done, Doctor Jim was doing, the
things Jerry had done and left undone, and wound up:

"You never was wuth Juno's little finger, an' you ain't wuth _his_ little
finger-nail now. Take his gun, Pleas. Take him to the State line, an' don't
you boys let him come back agin until he's stopped drinkin', got a suit o'
clothes, an' a job."

"Why, Mandy," said Pleasant, "hit's kind o' funny, but Lum an' Jay an' me
fixed hit up about an hour ago that we aimed to do that very thing. I seed
Doc a-comin' up hyeh, an' was afeard I mought be too late: but if I'd 'a'
knowed you was hyeh I wouldn't 'a' worried."

Again Doctor Jim was thinking, "How extraordinary!" but this time how
extraordinary it was that the man really meant to shoot him. Somehow
he began to understand.

Still grinning, Pleasant Trouble had swung across the room, whipped
Jerry's pistol from the holster, and with it motioned the owner toward
the door. Then Doctor Jim rose. "Hold o