"Men were all three in pioneer Kentucky. During the period of Indian wars the Kentucky farmer and soldier, who was the border scout, was also sometimes the scout of Æsculapius."
"Æsculapius—who was he? Trotter, runner, or pacer?"
"He set the pace: you might call him a pacer."
What a sense of deep peace and security and privacy there was in the two being thus free to talk together of life and the world—in that womanless house! No woman sitting beside the fire to interject herself and pull things her way; or to sit by without a sign—and pull things her way afterwards—without a sign.
The physical comfort of the night, and the rain, and the snug hearth awoke a desire for more confidences.
"Tell me about the medical schools when you were a student. Not about the professors. I don't want to hear anything about the professors. You wouldn't know anything about them, anyhow: no student ever does. But what were the students up to among themselves at nights? The wild ones. I don't want to hear anything about the goody-goody ones. Tell me about the devils—the worst of the devils."
The medical schools of those days, as members of the profession yet living can testify if they would, had their stories of student life that make good stories when recited around the fireside with September rain on the roof. The former graduate and non-practitioner was not averse seemingly to reminiscence. Forthwith he entered upon some chronicles and pursued them with that soft, level voice of either betting with you or baptizing you—the voice of gambling in this world or of gambling for the next.
As the recitals wound along their channels, the listener's enthusiasm became stirred: by degrees it took on a kindling that was like a wild leaping flame of joy.
"But there always has to be a leader," he said, as though forecasting for himself a place of such splendid prominence. "There has to be a leader, a head."