Having learned the news the miners adjourned to the saloons and the toasts for the next few hours were to:
"Doctor Dick, a man o' narve from Wayback."
Until a late hour the miners drank and gambled, and then, toward dawn, quiet reigned in the camps, broken only now and then by a yell from some man who was too full of liquor to go to sleep.
The next morning, greatly to the delight of all, Doctor Dick appeared at breakfast and received an ovation. Loo Foo had dressed his wounded arm, and though sore, it was all right, Doctor Dick said, yet he was pale from loss of blood.
After breakfast he mounted his horse and took the rounds to see his patients, and everywhere he was greeted with a welcome that could not but flatter him.
But the two weeks before date for the return of the coach—for the runs were semimonthly—passed away and no driver appeared from W—— to take the stage out. It began to look very much as though Doctor Dick would have to again take the reins.
The search of the dead bodies of the two road-agents had revealed nothing as to their identity, for, excepting their weapons, a little money, some odds and ends in their pockets, they had nothing of value about them, and they were buried at the expense of Doctor Dick, who would have it so, as he very laconically remarked:
"As I killed them, I should pay their expenses when they are unable to do so."
At last the day for the starting of the coach came round, and Doctor Dick, as no one else volunteered, expressed his willingness to take the reins, though he remarked:
"This will be the last run I shall make, so you must get a man here, Landlord Larry, to go, if I do not bring one back with me from W——."