rs or forty cents, and
the Kulanche doctor has got to the mules already, having a lien on 'em
for twenty-five.

"Pete hurried over and put the proposition up to me. He says his little
chief is badly sick and he's got a fine white doctor, but will I stake
him to enough to get this fine Injin doctor?--thus making a cure
certain. Well, I tore into the old fool for wanting to let this depraved
old medicine man tamper with his baby, and I warned him the Kulanche
doctor probably wasn't much better. Then I tell him he's to send down
for the best doctor in Red Gap at my expense and keep him with the child
till it's well. I tell him he can have the whole ranch if it would cure
his child, but not one cent for the Injin.

"Well, the poor boy is about half convinced I'm right, but he's been an
Injin too long to believe it all through. He went off and sent for the
Red Gap doctor, but he can't resist making another try for the Injin
one; and that old scoundrel holds out for his price. Pete wants him to
wait for his pay till haying is over; but he won't because he thinks
Pete can get the money from me now if he really has to have it. Pete
must of been crazy for fair about that time.

"'All right,' says he; 'you can cure my little chief?'

"The crook says he can if the money is in his hand.

"'All right,' says Pete again; 'but if my little chief dies something
bad is going to happen to you.'

"That's about all they ever found out concerning this threat of Pete's,
though another Injin who heard it said that Pete said his brother-in-law
would make the trouble--not Pete himself. Which was likely true enough.

"Pete's little chief died the night the Red Gap doctor got up here. Ten
minutes later this medicine man had hitched up his team, loaded his
plunder into a wagon, and was pouring leather into his horses to get
back home quick. He knew Pete never talks just to hear himself talk.
They found him about thirty miles on his way--slumped down in the wagon
bed, his team hitched by the roadside. There had been just one careful
shot. As he hadn't been robbed--he had over" a hundred dollars in gold
on him--it pointed a mite too strong at Pete after his threat.

"A deputy sheriff come up. Pete said his brother-in-law had been
hanging round lately and had talked very dangerous about the medicine
man. He said the brother-in-law had probably done the job. But Pete had
pulled this too often before when in difficulties. The deputy said he'd
b