“And a kick in the abdomen,” Champers groaned. “But it was from what was comin’ you saved me. I’ve never been sick a day in my life and I’ve had little sympathy for you and your line, and then to be knocked down so quick by a little whiffet like Smith and roll over like a log at the first blow!”
“You’re in luck. Most men in your line ought to have been knocked down a good many times before now,” the doctor declared. “How did this happen?”
“I settled with Smith and made him sign everything up to a hog-tight contract. Then he started in to abuse me till I got tired and told him I’d just got back from Ohio and a thing or two I saw there. Then he suddenly belted me and, against all rules of the game, kicked me when I was down, and left me, threatening to come back and finish me. That’s what you saved me from.”
“Champers, my old buggy is like a rocking chair. Let 272 me take you home with me for a few days while you are wearing patches on your head,” Horace Carey suggested.
Darley Champers stared at his helper in surprise. Then he said slowly:
“Say, Doc, I’ve hated you a good many years for doin’ just such tricks for folks. It was my cussedness made me do it, I reckon. I’d like to get out of town a little while. That joint of Wyker’s has seen more’n one fellow laid out, and some of ’em went down Big Wolf later, and some of ’em fell into Little Wolf and never come out. It’s a hole, I tell you. And Smith is a devil tonight.”
On the homeward way Dr. Carey said quietly:
“By the way, Champers, I saw you at Cloverdale, Ohio, last week.”
Champers did not start nor seem surprised as he replied:
“Yes, I seen you, but I didn’t want to speak to nobody right then.”