all off'n a buckin' horse, one of them
bones of yours gets to pressin' on a nerve, why, it ain't natural you
ought to feel good. Now, is it?' says he.

"He goes on and shows how all up and down a feller's backbone there is
plenty of soft spots, and he shows likewise that there is scattered
around in different parts of a feller's territory something like two
hundred and four and a half bones, any one of which is likely any
minute to jar loose and go to pressin' on a soft spot; 'In which case,'
says he, 'there is need of a ostypath immediate.'

"For instance,' he says to me, 'I could make quite a man out of you in
a couple of years if I had the chanct.' I ast him what his price would
be for that, and he said he was willin' to tackle it for about fifty
dollars a month. That bein' just five dollars a month more than the
boss was allowing me at the time, and me seein' I'd have to go about
two years without anything to wear or eat--let alone anything to
drink--I had to let this chanct go by. I been strugglin' along, as you
know, ever since, just like this, some shopworn, but so's to set up.
There was one while, I admit, when the Doc made me some nervous, when I
thought of all them soft spots in my spine, and all them bones liable
to get loose any minute and go to pressin' on them. But I had to take
my chances, like any other cow puncher at forty-five a month."

"You ought to raise his wages, Mac," said Doc Tomlinson to McKinney,
the ranch foreman, but the latter only grunted.

"Mr. Ostypath, he stayed around the Bar T quite a while," began Curly
again, "and we got to talkin' to him a heap about modern science. Says
he, one evenin', this-a-way to us fellers, says he, 'Why, a great many
things goes wrong because the nervous system is interfered with, along
of your osshus structure. You think your stomach is out of whack,'
says he. 'It ain't. All it needs is more nerve supply. I git that by
loosenin' up the bones in your back. Why, I've cured a heap of
rheumatism, and paralysis, and cross eyes, and--'

"'What's that?' says Tom Redmond, right sudden.

"'You heard me, sir,' says the Doc, severe.

"Tom, he couldn't hardly wait, he was so bad struck with the idea he
had. 'Come here, Doc,' says he. And then him and Doc walked off a
little ways and begun to talk. When they come up toward us again, we
heard the Doc sayin': 'Of course I could cure him. Straybismus is dead
easy. I never did operate on no horse, but