238 MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION. 



bumt-up rocks. But all honour to her skill as a 

 cook, she did her fixings admirably ! 



During dinner I had ample time to take stock 

 of Doctor Ephraim Meadows. His face would 

 have been a fortune as a study to a painter ; his 

 forehead high but narrow, his eyebrows thick, 



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bushy, and overhanging ; his hair would have 

 joined his eyebrows, had not a narrow line of 

 yellow skin formed a kind of boundary between 

 them. Peering out from beneath his shaggy 

 hair were two little twinkling, restless grey eyes, 

 more roguish than good-natured. His nose, 

 crooked and sharp, was like the beak of a buz- 

 zard; with thin dry lips that shut in a straight 

 line, which told in pretty plain language he could 

 be resolute and rusty if need be. The tip of his 

 chin, bent up in an easy curve, was covered with 

 a yellowish beard, that had been guiltless of comb 

 or shears for many a day. His nether limbs were 

 clad in leather never-mention-ums, kept up by 

 a wide belt, from which dangled a six-shooter. 

 A red shirt, with an immense collar that reached 

 the point of the shoulders, and a dirty jean 

 jacket completed his costume. 



Our meal over, we started out to see the 

 wonders of the doctor's establishment. The 

 house or hospital, as he designated it, was a 



