n--"

"The woman?" said I.

"Yes, woman. Didn't I tell yu' the botanist had his wife along? Well, he
did. And she acted better than the man, for he was rosin' his head,
and shoutin' he had no whiskey, and he didn't guess his knife was sharp
enough to amputate my thumb, and none of us chewed, and the doctor
was twenty miles away, and if he had only remembered to bring his
ammonia--well, he was screeching out 'most everything he knew in the
world, and without arranging it any, neither. But she just clawed his
pocket and burrowed and kep' yelling, 'Give him the stone, Augustus!'
And she whipped out one of them Injun medicine-stones,--first one I ever
seen,--and she clapped it on to my thumb, and it started in right away."

"What did it do?" said I.

"Sucked. Like blotting-paper does. Soft and funny it was, and gray. They
get 'em from elks' stomachs, yu' know. And when it had sucked the poison
out of the wound, off it falls of my thumb by itself! And I thanked the
woman for saving my life that capable and keeping her head that cool.
I never knowed how excited she had been till afterward. She was awful
shocked."

"I suppose she started to talk when the danger was over," said I, with
deep silence around me.

"No; she didn't say nothing to me. But when her next child was born, it
had eight rattles."

Din now rose wild in the caboose. They rocked together. The enthusiast
beat his knee tumultuously. And I joined them. Who could help it? It
had been so well conducted from the imperceptible beginning. Fact and
falsehood blended with such perfect art. And this last, an effect so
new made with such world-old material! I cared nothing that I was
the victim, and I joined them; but ceased, feeling suddenly somehow
estranged or chilled. It was in their laughter. The loudness was too
loud. And I caught the eyes of Trampas fixed upon the Virginian with
exultant malevolence. Scipio's disgusted glance was upon me from the
door.

Dazed by these signs, I went out on the platform to get away from the
noise. There the Virginian said to me: "Cheer up! You'll not be so easy
for 'em that-a-way next season."

He said no more; and with his legs dangled over the railing, appeared to
resume his newspaper.

"What's the matter?" said I to Scipio.

"Oh, I don't mind if he don't," Scipio answered. "Couldn't yu' see? I
tried to head 'em off from yu' all I knew, but yu' just ran in among 'em
yourself. Couldn't yu' see? Kep' hinderin' and spoi