P. S. Better send over to the Express Company for one of them shot-
guns. Buckshot, that a-way, is a cinch; an' if you're a leetle
nervous it don't make no difference. B. J.

"About the time the 10-gauge comes over to the Colonel, with the
compliments of the Wells-Fargo Express, an' twenty shells holdin'
twenty-one buck-shot to the shell, Doc Peets himse'f comes
sa'nterin' into the sanctum.

"'You-all ought never to have printed it, Colonel,' says Peets; 'I'm
plumb chagrined over that exposure of Huggins.'

"'Don't you reckon, Doc,' says the Colonel, sort o' coaxin' the
play, 'if you was to go down to the Red Light an' say to this
inebriated miscreant that you makes good, it would steady him down a
whole lot?'

"'If I was to take sech steps as you urges, Colonel,' says Peets,
'it would come out how I gives away the secrets of my patients; it
would hurt my p'sition. On the level! Colonel, I'd a mighty sight
sooner you'd beef Huggins.'

"'But see yere, Doc,' remonstrates the Colonel, wipin' off the water
on his fore'ead, 'murder is new to me, an' I shrinks from it.
Another thing--I don't thirst to do no five or ten years at
Leavenworth for downin' Huggins, an' all on account of you declinin'
whiskey chips as a honorarium for them services.'

"'It ain't no question of Leavenworth,' argues Peets; 'sech thoughts