Best of all I like to hear him tell of his earlier days when he sold
liniments and cough cures on street corners, living hand to mouth,
heart to heart with the people, throwing heads or tails with fortune
for his last coin.

"I struck Fisher Hill, Arkansaw," said he, "in a buckskin suit,
moccasins, long hair and a thirty-carat diamond ring that I got from
an actor in Texarkana. I don't know what he ever did with the pocket
knife I swapped him for it.

"I was Dr. Waugh-hoo, the celebrated Indian medicine man. I carried
only one best bet just then, and that was Resurrection Bitters. It
was made of life-giving plants and herbs accidentally discovered by
Ta-qua-la, the beautiful wife of the chief of the Choctaw Nation, while
gathering truck to garnish a platter of boiled dog for the annual corn
dance.

"Business hadn't been good in the last town, so I only had five
dollars. I went to the Fisher Hill druggist and he credited me for
half a gross of eight-ounce bottles and corks. I had the labels and
ingredients in my valise, left over from the last town. Life began to
look rosy again after I got in my hotel room with the water running
from the tap, and the Resurrection Bitters lining up on the table by
the dozen.


[Illustration: "Life began to look rosy again..."]