I
limped for a week--he had a bottle in his hip pocket."
THE MULE DRIVER AND THE GARRULOUS MUTE
Bill had finished panning the concentrates from our last clean-up,
and now the silver ball of amalgam sizzled and fried on the shovel
over the little chip-fire, while we smoked in the sun before the
cabin. Removed from the salivating fumes of the quicksilver, we
watched the yellow tint grow and brighten in the heat.
"There's two diseases which the doctors ain't got any license to
monkey with," began Bill, chewing out blue smoke from his lungs with
each word, "and they're both fevers. After they butt into your
system they stick crossways, like a swallered toothpick; there ain't
any patent medicine that can bust their holt."
I settled against the door-jamb and nodded.
"I've had them both, acute and continuous, since I was old enough
to know my own mind and the taste of tobacco; I hold them mainly
responsible for my present condition." He mournfully viewed his
fever-ridden frame which sprawled a pitiful six-feet-two from the
heels of his gum-boots to the grizzled hair beneath his white Stetson.
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