“Come a little closer, and I'll tell you.”
Not only Parker's head but the others were bent over the counter. Dr. Duchesne uttered a few words in a tone inaudible to the rest of the company. There was a profound silence, broken at last by Abe Wynford's voice:—
“Ye kin pour me out about three fingers o' whiskey, Barkeep. I'll take it straight.”
“Same to me,” said the others.
The men gulped down their liquor; two of them quietly passed out. The doctor wiped his lips, buttoned his coat, and began to draw on his riding-gloves.
“I've heerd,” said Poker Jack of Shasta, with a faint smile on his white face, as he toyed with the last drops of liquor in his glass, “that the darned fools sometimes smell punk as a medicine, eh?”
“Yes, THAT'S comparatively decent,” said the doctor reflectively. “It's only sawdust mixed with a little gum and formic acid.”
“Formic acid? Wot's that?”
“A very peculiar acid secreted by ants. It is supposed to be used by them offensively in warfare—just as the skunk, eh?”
But Poker Jack of Shasta had hurriedly declared that he wanted to speak to a man who was passing, and had disappeared. The doctor walked to the door, mounted his horse, and rode away. I noticed, however, that there was a slight smile on his bronzed, impassive face. This led me to wonder if he was entirely ignorant of the purpose for which he had been questioned, and the effect of his information. I was confirmed in the belief by the remarkable circumstances that nothing more was said of it; the incident seemed to have terminated there, and the victims made no attempt to revenge themselves on See Yup. That they had one and all, secretly and unknown to one another, patronized him, there was no doubt; but, at the same time, as they evidently were not sure that Dr. Duchesne had not hoaxed them in regard to the quality of See Yup's medicines, they knew that an attack on the unfortunate Chinaman would in either case reveal their secret and expose them to the ridicule of their brother miners. So the matter dropped, and See Yup remained master of the situation.