the palest gray eyes, and the quietest of manners. He was not a doctor
of anything, hence his title. Perhaps the fact that the year before he
had quietly shot all six of the bullets of his Colt revolver into the
body of a murderous assailant before that distinguished person could
fall to the earth had invested his townsmen and admirers with a modest
desire to do him a titular honor. Howsoever that might have been, he
had always subsequently found himself addressed with sincere respect,
while his counsel had been sought on every topic, possible, impossible,
and otherwise, mooted in all Borealis. The fact that his sister was
the "boss of his shack," and that he, indeed, was a henpecked man, was
never, by any slip of courtesy, conversationally paraded, especially in
his hearing.

Appealed to now concerning the method of ringing the bar of steel for
worshipful purposes, he took a bite at his nails before replying. Then
he said:

"Well, I'd ring it a little bit faster than you would for a funeral and
a little bit slower than you would for a fire."

"That's the stuff!" said Field. "I knowed that Doc would know."

But Doc refused them, nevertheless, when they asked if he would deign
to do the ringing himself. Consequently Field, the father of the camp,
made a gallant attempt at the work, only to miss the "bell" with his
hammer and strike himself on the knee, after which he limped to a seat,
declaring they didn't need a bell-ringing anyhow. Upon the blacksmith
the duty devolved by natural selection.

He rang a lusty summons from the steel, that fetched all the dressed-up