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“It’s a new sport, but I bet I’ll take to it,” said I. “What d’you do, crease ’em or cripple ’em?”

“Pshaw! Put up that hearse ticket,” Mike told me. “Us doctors don’t take human life, we save it.”

“I thought you said you was practisin’ on Injuns.”

“Injuns is human. For a fact! I’ve learned a heap in this business. Not that I wouldn’t bust one if I needed him, but it ain’t necessary. Come, I’ll show you.”

This here town had more heathens than whites in it, and before we’d gone a block I seen a buck Injun and his squaw idlin’ along, lookin’ into the store winders. The buck was a hungry, long-legged feller, and when we neared him Mike said to me:

“Hist! There’s one. I’ll slip up and get him from behind. You grab him if he runs.”

This method of buildin’ up a dental practice struck me as some strange, but Butters was a queer guy and this was sort of a rough town. When he got abreast of Mr. Lo, Mike reached out and garnered him by the neck. The Injun pitched some, but Mike eared him down finally, and when I come up I seen that one side of the lad’s face was swelled up something fearful.

“Well, well,” said I. “You’ve sure got the dentist’s eye. You must have spied that swellin’ a block away.”

Mike nodded, then he said: “Poor feller! I’ll bet it aches horrible. My office is right handy; let’s get him in before the marshal sees us.”

We drug the savage up-stairs and into Mike’s dental stable, then we bedded him down in a chair. He protested considerable, but we got him there in a tollable state of preservation, barring the fact that he was skinned up on the corners and we had pulled a hinge off from the office door.

“It’s a shame for a person to suffer thataway,” Mike told me; “but these ignorant aborigines ain’t educated up to the mercies of science. Just put your knee in his stummick, will you? What could be finer than to alleviate pain? The very thought in itself is elevatin’. I’m in this humanity business for life–Grab his feet quick or he’ll kick out the winder.”

“Whoa!” I told the Injun. “Plenty fix-um!” I poked the swellin’ on his face and he let out a yelp.

“It’s lucky we got him before multiplication set in,” Mike assured me. “I lay for ’em that-away at the foot of the stairs every day; but this is the best patient I’ve had. I’ve a notion to charge this one.”

“Don’t you charge all of ’em?” I wanted to know.

“Nope. I got a tin watch off of one patient when he was under gas, but the most of ’em ain’t worth goin’ through. You got to do a certain amount of charity work.”

“Don’t look like much of a business to me,” I said.

“There’s something about it I like,” Mike told me. “It sort of grows on a feller. Now that you’re here to help catch ’em, I calc’late to acquire a lot of skill with these instruments. I’ve been playin’ a lone hand and I’ve had to take little ones that I could handle.”

When Mike produced a pair of nickel-plated nail-pullers, Mr. Injun snorted like a sea-lion, and it took both of us to hold him down; but finally I tied his hair around the head-rest and we had him. His mane was long and I put a hard knot in it, then I set on his moccasins while Doctor Butters pried into his innermost secrets.

“There she is–that big one.” Mike pointed out a tooth that looked like the corner monument to a quartz claim.

“You’re on the wrong side,” I told him.

“Mebbe I am. Here’s one that looks like it would come loose easier.” Mike got a half-Nelson over in the east-half-east quarter-section of the buck’s mouth and throwed his weight on the pliers.

The Injun had pretty well wore himself out by this time, and when he felt those ice-tongs he just stiffened out–an Injun’s dead game that-away; he won’t make a holler when you hurt him. His squaw was hangin’ around with her eyes poppin’ out, but we didn’t pay no attention to her.