dly disease is on the rampage I, for one, 'd like to
know it."

"Me too," drawled Dan.

A silence followed as Jimmie coiled up his rope. Pete began to remove
his boots. Dan, very furtively, placed a finger upon his pulse. Then
he said with constraint--

"Boys, I don't want any joshin'. I've not felt extry spry lately."

"Same here," said Jimmie quickly.

Pete smiled sarcastically.

"A little bird tole me," he remarked slowly, looking at Dan, "as how
Miss Mary Willing was seen a-buggy-ridin' las' Sunday with Jack Rice."

"It's true," said Dan, shortly. "Me and Mame is at outs. If I was
dyin', I couldn't forgive her!"

"You don't say?" cried Jimmie. "Wal, Miss Edna Parkinson an' yours
truly ain't goin' ter speak never no more, neither. That hound Ikey
Greenberg has cut in with a noo Prince Albert coat. It's upset me
considerable."

"My trouble ain't heart only," said Dan.

"Stomach?" suggested Pete.

"All overish, mostly."

"You ain't bin readin' the advertisements o' quack doctors, hev ye?"

"Not since I was twenty. They did give me fits at one time. Boys"--he
began to scratch himself furiously--"I've a feelin' as if I was afire
inside."

"Maw used ter give me sarsaparilla," said Jimmie.

"My folks," observed Pete, "never tuk nothin' but castor ile. Must ha'
downed a barrel o' that when I was a kid."

"This thing is drivin' me crazy," said Dan.

"Wal," replied Pete deliberately, "I know what I'd do, and I'd do it
quick. This yere Professor is on the ranch, and he's a dandy. After
the _rodeo_, you jest sachay up to him an' tell him what you've
tole us. If he don't take the kinks outer yer, he's a fraud. See!"

"Gosh," exclaimed Dan, "I'll do it!"

They turned in.

* * * * *

The Professor next day watched the _rodeo_ from a platform
erected near the biggest of our corrals. This was his first visit to
California, and he was mightily impressed by the skill and vigour of
the vaqueroes. To Ajax he declared that he was amazed to find such
splendid specimens in that particular locality. Ajax smiled.

"We have not much," he said, "but we feel that we have a right to
expect high health. We used to say," he added, "that sickness was
unknown in our hills till a wise doctor settled here from the East."

The Professor frowned.

"I rose at six," he said austerely. "I made a microscopical
examination of the water in your new spring, which rises, I venture to
remind you, through s