128 THE ITINERANT HORSE PHYSICIAN 



him so much that I surely thought he would 

 squeal; but he paid us with a smile and said he 

 hoped we would both stay in that country. A 

 whole year later I came through that part of the 

 country again and he was friendly yet; every- 

 thing we did for him on that first meeting came 

 out fine. 



4i& 3& 3& 3fe 3& & 



One day, when I had been in South Dakota 

 two or three weeks, a client of mv brother re- 

 quested him to make a visit to his ranch forty- 

 five miles north of town. He said he had a 

 young horse on this ranch that had a swelling 

 under one eye and a discharge from the nostril 

 on the same side. He stated that he had not 

 seen the horse for three or four months, but the 

 last time he saw him, he said, he seemed to be in 

 a serious condition and he thought he would have 

 us treat him. The reason that he had not seen 

 the animal for such a long time was that he lived 

 in town, and only visited the ranch a few times 

 each year. 



As he owned a car he offered to take us to the 

 ranch and bring us back to town the same day. 

 He did not inquire what our charge would be 

 for the trip, and as he was quite wealthy, we 

 presumed that he would be prepared to pay what 

 was right. 



We started out early in the morning and 

 arrived at the ranch about noon. The greater 

 portion of the time was spent in crossing the 

 Missouri river in a rowboat and walking from 

 the west shore to the ranch, a distance of a mile 



