Chapter V: Part 5

“Now, see here, doctor,” said Jack, “you know that I am your friend. As a friend it is my duty to prevent you from acquiring that fatal pride which ever precedes a fall. I have hesitated to explain your popularity to you, but for your own sake and to preserve my own health, I must do so.”

“Why, what the deuce do you mean?” I asked, in astonishment.

“Look behind you, doctor.”

I looked through the rear window of my phæton, and saw, about fifty yards behind me, a long, black, undertaker’s wagon. On the seat, driving the sorry-looking steeds that were drawing the horribly suggestive vehicle, was--my friend, Nathaniel Black!

My undertaking friend was by no means quietly pursuing his gloomy way, but was gesticulating and winking suggestively to the people on the side walk. He would first flirt his knobby thumb in my direction with a “D’ye see him?” gesture, and then, with a “That’s what I’m here for” wink at everybody in sight, would grin all over his ugly face.

“A horrible coincidence!” I said faintly.

“Coincidence nothing!” howled Jack. “He’s been doing that ever since you got your new buggy!”

And I bought wine for Nathaniel, and for Jack, and for sundry of their friends--yea, and for all who were within the sound of their voices in their daily walks.

But, I borrowed the wherewithal to settle from Jack. And, by and by, when practice came, I gave my patronage to Nathaniel’s rivals.

Was the joke on me?

I wonder.

* * * * *

There are some doctors who do not understand the precise relation that the noble profession of undertaking desires to bear to the medical man. I freely confess that I myself was ignorant on this point until quite recently.

In a certain neighborhood of this metropolis dwells an undertaker of more than local renown whose reputation has been built up largely by virtue of certain natural attributes that peculiarly fit him for the practice of his profession;--indeed, I have never met a man more to the manner born as regards fitness for his--shall I say, life work, or would “death work” be more appropriate?

Mr. Weeps is one of those mournful-looking persons, who seem to be constantly on the verge of tears. His expression is of a most sympathetic nature, and his eyes seem ever ready to exude the saline fluid that is so essential to the expression of sincere sorrow and regret. It might be remarked in passing, that there are numerous theories explanatory of the redness and humidity of those bleary orbs. Personally, I repudiate the onion theory altogether, and incline to the view that Mr. Weeps’ ocular peculiarities are dependent upon a combination of catarrh and polypi obstructing the nasal ducts. The “red eye” theory, advanced by one of his homeopathic constituents, is unworthy of consideration--especially as my lugubrious friend has been superintendent of a Sunday school for ten years and has served two terms as alderman.

But, whatever, may be the true explanation, Weeps’ eyes appear to have been especially designed for his vocation. There is no other business--unless it be selling milk--to which those watery orbs could possibly be so well adapted as to undertaking.

I cannot claim to be on terms of intimacy with Mr. Weeps, and therefore do not feel warranted in attempting a detailed description of his many physical peculiarities--it would, however, be manifestly unfair to that most estimable gentleman, did I not dwell upon his eyes.

In the course of my semi-occasional peregrinations into Mr. Weeps’ neighborhood, it transpired that one of my patients, with malice both prepense and aforethought--and consumption--did leave his little lung behind and hie him heavenward.

My kindly and well meant offices being no longer necessary, I naturally supposed that my responsibility had ceased. Not so, however--I was asked to recommend an undertaker. Having heard of Mr. Weeps and his phenomenal skill, I suggested that the family consult him as to the further management of the case. It seems that the family took my advice and was highly gratified with the pleasant and expeditious manner in which he performed his important functions. Indeed, the friends of the party chiefly interested were so well pleased, that they thanked me a few days later, for recommending a gentleman of so much talent and such a sympathetic nature. I, of course, appreciated the family’s gratitude, although the service rendered was quite unusual in my experience. Some unfeeling persons might say that the large life insurance policies left by the deceased were an element in the gratitude the family expressed to me, but, my dear reader, the very thought would be cruel and ignoble. Without confidence in human nature life would be miserable for all of us--and especially for doctors.

A few days after the funeral I received a call from Mr. Weeps. There seemed to be no end to the gratitude which was believed to be due me. Weeps had called to express his. He appeared to be as well pleased with the family as its members were with him.

I had never had the honor of meeting Mr. Weeps before, but his suave and cordial manner of introducing himself put me at my ease at once. The pleasure of acquaintance was of course mutual; it always is, you know.

After thanking me most cordially for my courtesy in referring the case of the late Mr. B---- to him, Mr. Weeps said:

“Now, doctor, I shall always be glad to have you remember me whenever you happen to be in my neighborhood.”

I looked at him suspiciously, but saw no murder in his eye; he was as oily and plausible as ever.

“You see,” he continued, “I have never had the honor of serving any of your patients before, and am very glad to have the opportunity of getting at least a small portion of your business.”

The fellow seemed to be getting a little personal, but I made no remark, and he went on with his little piece.

“I will see you again in a few days, doctor--as soon as I have been compensated for my labors in this particular case. You, of course, understand that I will extend to you in this case, as in all future cases, the same courtesies I usually extend to the medical profession.”

“Ah, indeed!” I exclaimed, “and of what do those courtesies consist?”

“Well,” he replied, blandly, “they are quite liberal, considering the hard times--_about twenty-five per cent._”

“’Tis strange--but true; for truth is always strange.
Stranger than fiction.”

Among all the undertakers I ever knew my feelings have been seriously disturbed by but one.

The gentleman in question is fat, jolly--when off duty--and a _bon vivant_ of the ideal type. He is a ubiquitous sort of chap, and I find myself stumbling over him quite frequently--in the most unexpected places and under the most embarrassing circumstances. No social gathering seems to be complete without him--much to my discomfiture.

Words cannot express the embarrassment I have suffered at the hands of my fat friend. The worst of the matter is that the fellow really likes me--you needn’t smile, gentle reader; his fondness does not depend upon reasons of a business nature; he likes me for myself alone. It will be seen, therefore, that I cannot afford to say anything which might by any possibility offend him. Aside from his affection for me, there is another motive which impels me to avoid personalities--he is high-strung and sensitive to a degree, and, if report speaks true, an expert boxer. To be sure, those whom he has boxed have said nothing about his proficiency, but where one’s own personal safety is concerned one is justified in giving due weight even to idle rumor.

Now, it may seem strange that I should find fault with a man who has so sincere a regard for me as my fat friend, but, you know, even affection may be over done. When a fellow dresses up on Sunday preparatory to calling on his best girl, and his pet dog lavishes caresses with his muddy paws on those eleven dollar lavender trousers, patience ceases to be a virtue--and the comparison is by no means far-fetched.

Whenever I board a crowded street car, that obese mortuary fiend is always aboard--and at the end of the car farthest from me. He never fails to see and recognize me, although I go through as many motions as a professional contortionist in the vain and frantic effort to avoid recognition.

And then you should hear him yell, “Hello, Doc! How are all the folks?”

I assure him that I am greatly obliged for his rather suggestive solicitude for the welfare of my family, and that the folks are all well.

He next asks me how business is, and when I answer, “First rate,” with a tone of sorrowing reproof he informs me that it is “very quiet with _him_.” As if his business is not supposed to be invariably quiet!

The party sitting next me leaves the car; the undertaker pushes through the crowd and with a “How d’ye do, old man?” and an ostentatious pump-handle shake of my hand that almost costs me several fingers, takes the vacant seat beside me.

And now comes a conversation--his part of which is audible to everybody on the car--relative to the “last case we had together.” The brute even mentions the party’s name, which, if it happens to be a well known one, excites the rapt attention of everybody within earshot.

He next proceeds to ask me to dine with him “to-morrow” and comments on the “elegant time we had together last week.”

Finally arriving at his destination, my demon bids me an affectionate good night and starts for the farther door of the car. I breathe a sigh of relief--but too soon. Having reached the platform he re-opens the door and bellows out--

“By the way, Doc! do you think old man Blank is going to pull through? Old friend of mine, you know--I’ll probably be in on the case when the thing’s over.”

* * * * *

I went to the opera the other night hoping--aye, determined to enjoy myself, and feeling that I was entitled to a little enjoyment, for I had had very little opera in my daily routine for some months. My wife was looking very well, and my mirror gave positive proof that my new dress suit was an unexceptionable fit. All things considered I had every reason to feel well satisfied with myself and the world at large.

But how vain are human hopes. We were hardly comfortably seated, before I saw in the box directly opposite mine--the fat undertaker who haunted my dreams!

I endeavored to avoid recognition, but it was no use. He saw me, and gesticulated so wildly to attract my attention that I was perforce obliged to respond in self-defense. The house being crowded, this little episode attracted much attention--especially on the part of numerous friends of the undertaker and myself, who, as luck would have it, happened to be present. These people smiled broadly; some even went so far as to wink significantly at each other.

The fat undertaker is one of those men who succeed in attracting attention at all times and under all circumstances. On this occasion he shone with effulgent brilliancy. He enjoyed the play--there was no doubt about that--and proposed to make me enjoy it also. Whenever the performance especially pleased him, he applauded vociferously, quivering all over like a lump of calf’s-foot jelly and gesticulating furiously in my direction. Having succeeded in attracting my attention, he would jerk his fat thumb in the direction of the artist who was favored with his approbation and nod emphatically at me.

The audience enjoyed my friend’s enthusiasm and seemed quite anxious to know how _I_ was enjoying it. I couldn’t enlighten it as intelligently as could have been wished, so I did the next best thing--I went out between acts to see a man--and found him so highly interesting that I forgot to go back. Suddenly remembering that my wife was still in the box, I sent an usher to inform her that I wasn’t feeling well and was waiting for her at the door. Being a wise woman, she divined the cause of my indisposition and soon joined me. She didn’t feel quite comfortable herself, and was glad to escape from--the opera.

I have forsworn society. I have bought an automobile, and if ever I go to the theater again--may the fat undertaker seize me!

A GRIM MEMENTO

My friend, Dr. Fairweather, was engaged when I called, but it so happened that I was in no hurry and could conveniently wait. I have since been glad that things happened as they did; had I not been compelled to wait and amuse myself as best I could, I probably should not have heard what to me was a most interesting story. The colored attendant who took my card and announced me to the doctor, returned and said:

“De doctah is right busy just now, suh. He says fo’ you alls to be sho to wait, cayse he wants to see you mos’ pow’ful. I reckon you alls better wait in dis yeh room, suh. De doctah says dat you must mek yo’sef to home.”

The servant ushered me into a small apartment, evidently the doctor’s “den,” and handed me the morning paper, which I proceeded to hungrily devour. The paper was the first I had seen in a month--I was just returning from my summer outing trip, and had stopped off _en route_ at P. to see my old friend Fairweather.

The doctor was detained for some time, and having finished reading my paper, I proceeded to inspect the curios with which the room was garnished. I had examined with great interest the fine collection of odd Indian relics and the queer weapons from the four quarters of the earth, and was returning to my seat by the window when a grinning human skull upon the mantel caught my eye.

It so happens that the human skull is of especial interest to me because of a certain hobby that I enjoy riding at odd moments. I am something of an enthusiast in the subjects of criminology and the relation of the contour and development of the skull to mental and moral qualities. It was with some curiosity therefore, that I picked up the skull and proceeded to critically examine it. I found it well worthy of study and regretted that I could give it only cursory attention.

The dwarfed frontal development; the great length of the face; the enormously large, protruding jaw; the huge orbits, with the great projecting bony prominences--the frontal bosses--above them; the general lightness of the bones; the unsymmetrical conformation of the face and the twisted and undeveloped dome of the skull presented a picture that is very familiar to the student of criminal anthropology.

So absorbed was I in the contemplation of the gruesome relic I held in my hands, that I was not conscious of the entrance of Dr. Fairweather until he spoke.

“Hello, old man!--riding your hobby as usual, I see. No time for your friends, I suppose.”

I grasped the doctor’s welcoming hand and replied, “Well, as you were busy, I had to kill time as best I might with this gentleman. He is a poor conversationist, hence I was compelled to utilize him in any way that I could. I must admit that I have found him very interesting--inversely to his loquacity, in fact.”

“Ah, indeed; and what do you make of him?”

“Looking for a chance to guy me, eh?” I replied. “Really, old fellow, time does not mellow you a bit. Well, guy away. I am not prepared to give you a critical dissertation on this particular skull. This much I will say, however--it has more of the ear marks of the degenerate than any I have seen for some time. The party who originally owned the skull should have been a desperado, or a hold-up man, although he may have passed the hat in church for aught I know--which may be a distinction without a difference.”

Dr. Fairweather laughed heartily. “Well, I don’t know but that I ought to resent your criticisms of the skull. I can forgive your slam at the church, but it is my duty to inform you that the gentleman of whom that skull is a relic was a very particular friend of mine.”

“Oh, then you are keeping the skull as a memento of your friend. There’s no accounting for tastes, you know,” I said, watching the doctor suspiciously out of the corner of my eye and recalling that he had as strong a predilection for practical jokes as I had for skulls.

“Yes, that is precisely it,” replied the doctor seriously. “I have two mementos of my dead friend; one--post mortem--you hold in your hand; the other--ante mortem--is here,” and he threw back from his forehead the long, wavy, dark hair in which threads of silver were beginning to show and pointed to a long, livid, jagged scar that traversed his left temple.

I looked at the doctor in surprise. Although I had known him for many years, I had never noticed his disfigurement.

“I don’t think I ever told you the story, did I?” continued the doctor.

I replied in the negative, assuring my friend that nothing could please me better than to hear him tell it.

“Well, I’m through with patients for to-day, and if you will do me the honor of dining with me at the club, I shall be most happy to relate it to you.”

* * * * *

“You will remember that I was formerly engaged in general practice in the little town of R---- in Northern Minnesota. My field was an arduous one and I could not select my patients--on the contrary, I was mighty glad when they condescended to select me. It’s quite different now; I can be ‘in’ or ‘out,’ as I may elect, when patients ring my bell. Better than all, I can ask an old friend to dine with me at the club. There _is_ a club, thank heaven, and there is also the wherewithal nowadays.”

“I was fortunate enough, early in my practice, to receive an appointment as the local surgeon of the St. Paul road for our little town.

“The position was a sinecure in a way, but I captured an occasional accident case that paid something, and the position of surgeon to the railroad gave me a certain amount of prestige among the country folk around. Then too, I had an annual pass over the road, and that helped some. It would have helped more if I had had time to ride and money for meals on the dining cars. Small though my railroad practice was, however, I had occasion to thank the Lord that I was a railroad surgeon and that one of my patients had a good memory, before I was done with the job.

“The winter of ’80 and ’81 was a hard one, and practice was not a simple, lightsome game. It seemed to me that when I had important work to do, my patient was always a long way off in some out of the way farm house, or at a crossing station where the trains ran every other week.

“The day before Christmas I received a call to attend a gunshot injury, about fifty miles from my home. The weather was abominable, being cold and stormy enough to make the hungriest and most ambitious young surgeon hesitate to face it. They get the blizzards from that devilish Medicine Hat at first hand up there, you, know--the raw stuff in the way of weather. But needs must when patients called, and as there was nothing to do but face the music I took the first and only available train for X----.

“My patient lived some miles away from the little hen coop of a station, the several stores and half a dozen houses that constituted the little town. A couple of young country yokels, eighteen or twenty years of age, met me at the train with a buck-board. There was just snow enough drifting to make the roads almost impassable here and there, but not enough for sleighing, so that the trip was not the pleasantest I had ever experienced.

“It was supper time before I had finished with the wounded man, and I was as hungry as a Sioux Indian on a long trail in the Bad Lands. I was very glad to participate in the humble but abundant meal.

“Supper over, I was informed that there was just time to catch the south bound train--then to the buckboard and miserable roads again; the gawky country boys who had met me at the train still doing the honors. When we arrived at the station, what was my disgust to learn that my train was fully two hours late.

“The prospect of spending the entire evening at a little tumble down way station waiting for a belated train was too uninviting for adequate description. As the storm was increasing every moment and the fierce wind was piling up the snow drifts higher and higher across the railroad tracks, there was no certainty that the expected train would come at all. My prospects for getting home that night were certainly dubious--locomotives stalled in snow drifts were sufficiently familiar to me to make me decidedly uneasy.

“My friends, the country boys, seeing my predicament, offered to stay with me until the train came, and although I protested feebly against their discommoding themselves to such an extent, I inwardly rejoiced when they showed their sincerity by insisting on remaining. Alas! had I but known the horrible thing that was soon to happen, I should have returned to their home with them rather than to have allowed the poor fellows to indulge their whole-souled notions of courtesy and hospitality.

“A cheery fire was burning in the stuffy little drum stove in the center of the common waiting room, and being pretty well chilled after our long, weary ride, I huddled up as close to it as I could without igniting my clothing. The two young farmers meanwhile inaugurated a playful wrestling bout which answered well in lieu of the fire in starting up their circulation.

“In one corner of the room was a curtained recess, containing the station master’s bed, to which the owner had apparently retired early, as evidenced by the brassy, nasally whistling snores which from time to time rent the air of the stuffy apartment, making the environment rather cheerful and homelike.

“I had been warming myself before the fire for fully an hour--the country lads had grown tired of their rough play and had seated themselves on a rough bench in the corner of the room, where they were nodding and occasionally snoring an intermittent, shrill falsetto accompaniment to the station master’s ruder and less musical bass. I had just discovered that I myself was growing sleepy and was about to seat myself with my back to the wall, yield to the pressure of fatigue and join the sleeping chorus when I was brought back to earth in a very unceremonious fashion.

“‘Hands up, there!’

“I turned slowly and gazed sleepily in the direction of the voice. The two country youths awoke with a start and sat staring, more stupidly than I if possible, in the same direction.

“‘Hands up, there, and be d--d quick about it!’

“I began to comprehend, and my hands, impelled by a will which for the time being was more masterly than my own, raised themselves, almost automatically, straight up in the air in the most orthodox fashion known to the annals of highway robbery. The country boys rose slowly to their feet and mechanically followed suit.

“The sleep-fog and the psychic confusion of surprise gradually cleared away, and I saw the tableau clearly--so clearly that, ‘an’ I should live a thousand years I’d not forget it’.

“Standing in the open door of the little station were two tough looking men. The taller of the two, the owner of the voice that had so unmusically and ruthlessly aroused us, was a man considerably over six feet in height, raw-boned, broad-shouldered, big-hatted, and roughly dressed, with a coarse red beard that evidently was much the worse for wear in regions where barbers are a scarce commodity. His eyes were of that cold steely grey color which makes one think twice before running counter to the wishes of the man to whom they belong.

“The ruffian held in either hand a cow boy’s pet, a long barreled Colt’s 45--the kind our fathers loved; the kind that has made American history, and especially the ‘bad men’ who adorn its pages.

“Say, old man, did you ever have a healthy, well favored, full stomached Colt’s 45 pointed at you in real earnest? Well, if you haven’t you can’t appreciate how I felt. I didn’t have to see that the hammers of those particular guns were raised to the proper angle and ready for business; it was also entirely unnecessary to waste any valuable time in speculating as to whether they were loaded or not. I actually _felt_ that those guns were at full cock and loaded to the muzzle--‘chock a block’. The muzzles of the weapons were more capacious than I had believed it possible for pistols to be, and deep down in each of their yawning throats I fancied I could see a huge conical ball, ready for flight in my direction. It was as though I were tied hand and foot and laid upon the track at the mouth of a railroad tunnel from which an express train was thundering down upon me at the rate of a mile a minute.

“Not knowing anything of the desperado’s power of self-control my own self-possession was hard to maintain--I imagined that his fingers were a little trembly, as though he were tempted to pull the trigger and have done with it, but was struggling with himself in the effort to restrain the savage impulse. I mentally resolved that I would neither do nor say anything which should disturb his poise or ruffle his equanimity.

“Ugh! I could actually hear the rush of the displaced air and impelling gases as the bullets started from their hiding places in the breeches of those mighty pistols and, swifter than lightning, flew toward me. I even fancied I could feel the impact of the cruel missiles with my flesh, and the moist warmth of the escaping blood as they rent my skin and muscles.

“Our hands being elevated to an angle which was satisfactory to the spokesman of the bandits, he turned to his companion and said:

“‘Go through ’em, Bob, and hustle it up. The train’ll be here before we can say Jack Robinson. Take that feller with the whiskers an’ spectacles first. Easy, now, gents; take your medicine, and don’t you bat an eye--if you don’t want a hole plugged through ye big enough for a cat to crawl into without bloodyin’ her whiskers.’

“The fellow who was officiating as lieutenant for the gentleman with the artillery was a tough-looking proposition for his inches, but such a little runt that even the moral suasion of the 45’s did not blunt the edge of my humiliation when he proceeded to ‘go through’ me.

“But the ignominy and shame of my embarrassing position had not yet reached the climax. I was raging inwardly and wishing that I could have a fair field and no favor with either or both of the bandits--I used to be pretty handy myself, you know--but I did not lose my self-control during the dextrous and speedy search of my person. A pair of walloping big guns is a great inhibitor of the warlike spirit.

“I had not collected my fee in the gunshot case, hence the process of ‘going through’ me was not very productive of spoils. My pockets were as empty of cash as those of a lamb after a busy day on ‘Change. A Waterbury watch, about two dollars in small change, a not very elaborate set of surgical instruments, a jack-knife, a bunch of keys, my wife’s photograph, and an annual pass on the St. Paul road constituted my available assets.

“The robber was simply furious when he took account of stock. Dashing the stuff upon the floor he ripped out:

“‘D--n you for a no account cuss, anyhow! I’ll just give you one for luck.’

“With this the ruffian suddenly caught me by the shoulders and, wheeling me to the right about, kicked me full upon the pride center! What little weight the fellow had was in that kick and I recollect that the hurt to my anatomy and the still greater injury to my self-respect was not unmingled with surprise. I never before knew how hard such a little chap could kick. It was like a blow from a hydraulic ram. It jarred me so that a plate with several false upper teeth was dislodged from my mouth, and fell upon the floor.

“The kick the bandit had given me was alone sufficient to impel me to do murder--my breed does not placidly submit to blows--but the betrayal of a secret which I had guarded carefully, even from my wife, was the last straw in my burden of humiliation. I could take a bite of crow, but I could not bolt him, beak, claws, feathers and all. So enraged was I that I completely forgot the man behind the guns.

“In the rear of the stove was a shelf upon which stood numerous things essential to even a bachelor’s housekeeping. Among these various properties a brace of old fashioned flat irons caught my eye. I rushed to the shelf, grabbed an iron and hurled it at my enemy’s head, just missing him by a hair’s breadth.

“Whether because he was taken by surprise or not, I do not know, but the bandit made no attempt to draw a weapon. He stood with mouth agape, stupidly gazing at me until, having missed my aim with the iron, I rushed at him like an infuriated bull; he then aroused himself to the emergency and clinched for safety, and we went to the floor together, the highwayman underneath. As I went down I caught a glimpse of the station agent with a six shooter in his hand, peering cautiously out between the curtains of the partition behind which he had been sleeping, apparently seeking an opportunity for a pot shot.

“With the downfall of the nearer robber the country boys regained their power of motion--and alas! forgot those awful guns and rushed awkwardly to my assistance.

“The desperado with the guns came into action simultaneously with the farmer lads. There were two shots, so close together that there seemed to be but one report! The two unfortunate youths fell dead across us two who were struggling upon the floor, their blood spouting over me in hot gushes. They fell with their full weight crushing me, so inertly that I was compelled to heave them off with my shoulders and elbows.

“The murder of those poor boys brought me to my senses, and then came an acute realization of the imminence of my own danger--I well knew at whom the next shot would be fired. With the realization of my danger my furious anger vanished; I regained my usual presence of mind and my thinking apparatus began to work again.

“Putting in practice a trick well known on the wrestling mat, I threw one arm around the neck of my foe, choking him into absolute helplessness. With the other arm I rolled him over like a trussed Christmas turkey, so that his body was between me and the danger of a salute from the 45’s. As I turned him over a shot rang out. The ball narrowly escaped putting an end to the battle. It was a lucky shot for me in more ways than one--it not only missed me, but struck the stove, ricocheted and smashed the hanging-lamp with which the room was dimly lighted. There was now no light save from the open door of the stove.

“The man with the guns, still bent upon assisting his friend and incidentally exterminating me, at once came to close quarters. Standing over our struggling forms, he endeavored to put a shot where it would do his cause the most good. He shot twice, but fired wide, so great was his fear of hitting his confederate.

“Never was my mind or muscle more active. I thought of the station master and his six shooter. ‘My God! Will he never fire?’ I exclaimed mentally. Meanwhile I twisted my helpless foe about like a bundle of rags. From side to side I rolled him--always with a view to keeping his body between me and danger. Suddenly there was a blinding flash, fairly in my face--and then came oblivion!

“How long I lay insensible I have no means of knowing. When I recovered consciousness I found myself lying where I had fallen when I went to the floor with the highwayman. Beside me, so near that I could touch them with my hand, lay the dead bodies of my late companions. I could just discern their rigid outlines in the dim light from the stove.

“As my senses grew more acute I became aware of an intense burning pain in the left side of my head, and felt a stream of warm fluid which I at once recognized as blood, trickling freely down my face. I touched the painful spot with my fingers, and knew at once what had happened--I had been shot through the temple! The serious nature of the injury would have suggested itself to the merest tyro. You may imagine how I felt, knowing as you do the extensive experience I had had with gunshot wounds. There did not seem to be one chance in a hundred that the ball had failed to penetrate my brain. Realizing this, I was only too well aware of the probably desperate character of my wound.

“I tried to rise, and after several painful efforts succeeded in raising myself on my elbow, only immediately to fall helplessly back to the floor again. As I lay there half dazed, and fearfully exhausted from the shock and loss of blood, I realized in a hazy sort of way that there was nothing to do but await the coming of assistance.

“I recalled in a confused fashion the vision of the station master and his gun, and wondered what had become of him and why he had not fired at the bandits during the fight. That he had fled from the scene of battle did not occur to me. It subsequently transpired, however, that the gallant fellow was too frightened to fire at the desperadoes and that, after several attempts to muster up courage enough to pull the trigger on them, he had dropped his weapon and fled incontinently through a rear window.

“I finally became apathetic and indifferent as to my fate--an experience by no means unusual to persons who have suffered from shock and great loss of blood--and lapsed into almost complete unconsciousness.

“How long I lay there upon the floor in my half dead condition is a matter for conjecture. I was finally aroused to full consciousness by the sound of voices and the noise of many feet at the door of the station. I heard some one say:

“‘I don’t think they both got away, boys. I only seen one feller run. Perhaps one o’ them men they was holdin’ up got one of ’em; there was a hull lot o’ shootin’ goin’ on.’

“‘We’d better go kind o’ careful, then,’ said another. ‘If there’s any of ’em in there, they may have just one kick left in ’em.’

“In my confused state of mind the significance of what I heard was entirely lost upon me. I knew only that help was at hand and felt that I must get to it.

“Struggling to my feet by a mighty effort I tottered to the door through which the feeble rays of a lantern in the hands of one of the crowd were gleaming. Reaching the door, I stumbled over the threshold and fairly fell into the arms of several men who were apparently too startled to follow the example of the rest of the crowd, which had scattered the instant my form appeared in the doorway.

“I was immediately thrown to the ground and pinned there by a big strapping fellow, who in his excitement very nearly finished the bandit’s work by squeezing what little breath I had remaining completely out of me.

“‘I’ve got him, boys!’ cried the man, who I afterward learned was the station master. The crowd recovered its nerve, returned to action and proceeded to inspect the capture, apparently losing all interest in further investigation of conditions inside the station.

“In the crowd were several women, who, with the curiosity and enterprise characteristic of the “weaker” sex in mobs, succeeded in pushing themselves in front of the men. As the man with the lantern turned the light full upon me, there was a cry from one of the women.

“‘That’s him, that’s the big robber! I seen him through the winder of our house when they passed by. I’d know him anywhere!’

“I began to realize that I was in danger and, fully aroused, endeavored to make myself heard. My efforts were futile, however, and I merely received a choking for my pains.

“‘Let’s string him up, boys; it’ll save the county a lot of expense!’ shouted some one.

“‘Hang him! Hang him!’ chorused the crowd.

“‘Somebody get a rope!’ cried the man who was kneeling on my chest.

“‘Take him to a telegraph pole!’ cried another.

“I was half dragged, half carried to the nearest telegraph pole and assisted to my feet beneath it. A rope was speedily found and tied about my neck. A boy was ordered to climb the pole with the other end of the rope and pass it over the arm that supports the wires.

“My situation would not have been so bad if I had lost the power of thinking and with it the capacity for mental suffering. My mind was never so acute as at that moment but, with the treatment the bandits had given me and the mauling and choking I had since received at the hands of that ignorant mob, I had absolutely lost my power of speech. But think!--My God! man, of what did I not think, as I stood there in the shadow of death at the hands of a lot of ignorant farmers and railroad hands who were about to offer me up on the altar of their own cowardice and brutality? A mob feels but it does not reason. I had seen enough of mobs to know that only a miracle could save me.

“It is a trite observation that in the mind of one standing on the margin of the Valley of Shadows, as I was at that awful moment, all the events of his past life pass in swift review. So rapidly does one impression follow another, that one’s previous experiences form a single composite picture like that of the biograph, or the pictures that dreams paint upon the brain. Such was my own experience in a general way, but one feature of the mental life review which my terrible experience brought me was most peculiar and horrifying.

“For several years before I graduated in medicine, I occupied a position in the coroner’s office in the city of C----. In the performance of my official duties I was compelled to witness a number of executions. Among others was that of a certain wife murderer. The sheriff, usually expert in such matters, made a bungle of this man’s case. The noose slipped and he slowly strangled to death! The unhappy event made a most powerful impression upon my youthful mind, but I little thought of the mental rehearsal of the awful scene that was in store for me.

“Standing out in bold relief from the rest of the picture of my past life that was displayed before my mental vision as the mob completed its preparations for hanging me, was the frightful scene enacted on the gallows at the execution of the wife murderer in the jail yard of C----.

“The most peculiar feature of it all was that it was I, and not that wife murderer whose death throes I saw in my mind’s eye. Horrible beyond conception were that awful choking, the agonized struggle for breath, the tumultuous spasms of the diaphragm, the twitchings of the muscles and the frightful roaring in the ears which I experienced as the murderer slowly died of strangulation. As the limbs of the dying man in the mental picture spasmodically flexed and extended themselves, I felt all of the agonizing pains experienced by sufferers from lock jaw or strychnine poisoning.

“And this was not all. My chest was encircled as with a band of iron. Closer and closer drew the band until it seemed as if my diaphragm must tear clear across its breadth in the fearful effort to get oxygen into my lungs. I saw brilliant, glittering points and shafts of light dancing before my eyes. I seemed to be growing delirious and vainly tried to speak, the result being a queer sort of gibberish. Worst of all, the black death hood seemed suddenly to become transformed into a mask of transparent glass, through which I could see my own purpling, swollen features, with the bulging, blackened lips and protruding tongue and turgid, popping eye balls, in which I could see the horror of impending death reflected. Oh, it was horrible! horrible!

“As the struggling body in the picture swayed back and forth from the initial tipping movement imparted by the falling of the drop, my real body seemed to oscillate back and forth like a pendulum. Once, when the picture body struck with cruel impact a corner post of the gallows tree, an acute, agonizing pain shot through me from head to foot. Then the swaying movement ceased and the body spun round and round like a top at the end of the fatal cord, so rapidly that the fuzzy threads of the hemp stood out like a coating of fur upon the rope. I grew dizzy and nauseated. Dizzier and dizzier I grew; louder and yet louder grew the roaring in my ears, until I became unconscious and--all was over.

“Then came the most incomprehensible thing of all. I recovered consciousness and saw crowding around the dead body upon the scaffold the lookers on at the execution, and the coroner’s jury, with myself at its head. Standing beside the corpse was Dr. Cartwright, the coroner’s physician. Watch in hand, with his fingers on the wrist of the corpse seeking for signs of the life that had forever departed, the doctor slowly counted the minutes required by law.

“And then I saw the body lowered into the coffin and taken away!

“All that I have described to you took place very rapidly. I was not conscious of any appreciable interval between the time of my conveyance from the station by the mob and the final act of the execution which my memory had painted for me.

“While the drama of the hanging was being played in my mind, the preparations for a more tangible execution under the auspices of Judge Lynch were going on.

“The boy with the rope ‘shinned’ up the telegraph pole like a young monkey. Arriving at the first cross arm of the pole, he passed the rope over it and threw the loose end down to the expectant crowd of bloodthirsty savages below.

“When the free end of the rope struck the ground, the entire crowd, with the exception of two or three men who were holding me, rushed for it, and fought for holds upon it. Each was more than willing to do his share in the killing of their helpless victim.

“The falling of the rope’s end and the mad rush of the crowd to secure it broke the spell in which I was bound and I regained my voice sufficiently to indistinctly mumble my name. A few seconds more and my death by strangulation would have been more than a mental picture--it would have been a grim reality! One of my guards had sufficient sense--or curiosity, I don’t know which, nor do I care so long as it served me well--to call a halt in the ceremonies.

“‘Hold on, boys! Wait a minute--let’s hear what this feller’s tryin’ to say. We’ve got plenty of time to hear his spiel.’

“Most of the crowd came reluctantly back to listen. The more ravenously bloodthirsty of the mob still held on to the rope and waited impatiently for the continuation of the pleasure party. As the brutes crowded around me I managed to introduce myself a little more coherently.

“‘Go on, what yer givin’ us?’ said the man who had halted the execution; ‘He says he’s a doctor, boys’.

“‘Here, let’s have a look at that feller,’ cried a voice from somewhere in the crowd. A man pressed forward and confronted me.

“‘Gimme that lantern.’

“The lantern was handed to him, and holding it close to my face he looked at me earnestly for a moment. I in turn, as you may surmise, stared quite as hard at him. We recognized each other simultaneously!

“‘Dan Williams,’ I stammered weakly, recognizing an old patient of mine, a railroad hand whose leg I had saved after it had been condemned to amputation.

“‘Good God! Doc. Fairweather, is that you?’

“I was saved! I shall always believe that the majority of the mob felt aggrieved at both Dan and myself by the mutual recognition that had saved my life by such a narrow margin. The rope was dropped, however, albeit grudgingly, and my neck released from its gruesome embrace.

“Dan impressed several of his friends into service and I was taken to the nearest house and temporarily cared for as well as possible under my own rather wabbly and uncertain direction, whilst I told my story as best I could in my pitiful condition.

“It was several days before I could be moved, a local physician meanwhile ministering to me with more devotion than surgical skill. You may imagine how happy I was to learn that my head was so hard that it had not been feazed by a 45 calibre conical ball. The bullet had entered my head at the left temple, glancing around the skull, plowing a huge furrow in the scalp and cutting a groove in the outer table of the bone along which it left a trail of lead clear around to the occiput, whence it had been deflected. It was afterward found buried in the wall of the station and sent to me as a souvenir.

“After my return home I was seriously ill for several weeks. I finally, however, returned to my practice, a little the worse for wear, but grateful for my hard-headedness. It was some time before my brain worked with its usual alertness, but after a few months I had only the scar to remind me of a most awful experience.

* * * * *

“And now for the story of the skull:

“A strong posse was organized for the pursuit of the murderers and they were soon overtaken, after a running fight some miles north of the scene of the awful tragedy in which I had enacted such an important rôle.

“The bandits had entrenched themselves in a deserted farm house, from which they made a desperate fight against their pursuers. Several of the attacking party were killed or wounded. During a lull in the fighting the smaller of the two desperados deserted his comrade, escaped from the house, and ran for the timber. A clever chap who had secreted himself in the woods at the rear of the house in anticipation of some such move on the part of the murderers, received him with a huge charge of buckshot from both barrels of a shot gun fired at close range, killing him instantly.

“I have a picture of the result of the shot, taken as the dead outlaw lay in his coffin. In my leisure moments I comfort myself by gazing upon it. Through the agency of that photograph the humiliation of the kick the fellow administered to me has faded into the faintest of memories. Indeed, when I do chance to recall that particular incident of the tragedy in which I played so prominent a part, it is with amusement rather than with chagrin.

“The principal of the two outlaws finally exhausted his ammunition. The house was rushed, and after a desperate hand to hand battle, in which, as the sheriff afterwards told me, the desperado ‘made plenty good, and laid out’ several of the attacking party, he was overpowered and manacled.

“The captured bandit proved to be Jack McDougall--_nom de guerre_, ‘Reddy McDug’--a many times murderer, bank robber and all round ‘bad man,’ upon whose head a price had rested for many months.

“McDougall was taken to K----, the county seat, and placed in jail under a strong guard. He was speedily tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged.

“During the trial, the desperado and I became very well acquainted, and before the date set for the execution I am free to say that I had become sufficiently interested in him to rather regret the impending cessation of our relations. Indeed, I am not ashamed to confess that I finally conceived a warm regard for the poor devil. Call it a whim if you like, the fact remains that I really did like him.

“Whatever else he may have been, Reddy was not a coward, and if there is any one thing I admire more than another in a man it is gameness. McDougall was a moral imbecile--he considered that he had followed a vocation, and a rather decent one, but he knew the price of the game and was willing to pay it if needs must. He said to me at one of my numerous visits:

“‘You see, Doc, it all depends on how you’re born, and how the cards is stacked. No matter what kind of a game you play, an’ no matter how you play it, settlin’ time is bound to come sooner or later. I’d like to sit in the hold up game a little longer, ’cause I’m still able-bodied, but I dunno as it makes a h--ll of a lot of difference when a feller’s hand is called. Anyhow, what’s the use o’ kickin’? Mine’s been called all right, all right, and there you are.’

“I last saw McDougall the day before his execution. He was still game as a pebble. His principal concern was to have me witness his end. Said he:

“‘Now, Doc, you an’ me has got to be pretty good pals, even if I did plug you that time tryin’ to help my pardner--which was part of the game anyway. You’re all the friend I’ve got, and I’d like to have you present at the swingin’ party. Just come and watch me cash in, an’ see how nice an’ gentlemanly your friend Reddy ‘ll take his medicine. There’ll be nary a kick out o’ me before the bottom drops out of things, an’ nary a kick afterward, if Mr. Sheriff’s onto his job.’

“I saw that McDougall was in earnest, and assured him as I bade him good-bye that I would be on hand for the ceremony. But, all the same, I didn’t mean a word of it. I had had about all the experience with hangings, both as witness and prospective principal, that was necessary to satisfy a man of my modest desires. Why, I had myself actually been mentally hanged and nearly physically hanged simultaneously. Besides, as I have already said, I liked McDougall.

“The execution came off according to schedule, and I was greatly consoled by the report that the sheriff, was, as McDougall expressed it, decidedly ‘on to his job.’ Indeed, I was told that the hanging was as smooth a piece of work as had ever occurred in Minnesota. So smooth was it, and so agreeable to the sentiments of the population of that section of the State, that the re-election of Sheriff Jackson was a foregone conclusion. All of which shows that the artist in his particular line is not without appreciation, and that the executioner, unlike the prophet, getteth honor in his own country.