A TREACHEROUS COWARD 223 



more faith in deliberation. I have as yet applied for 

 no patent on my device, therefore those of my readers 

 who chance to get into a like fix, are at liberty to use it. 



Here is another hint that may be of service. Every 

 man who has a touch of lumbago has with it an im- 

 pulsive yearning to back up against, or sit down upon, 

 anything that is hot — with the exception, perhaps, of 

 a red-hot stove. "While I was in Greenville, Me., and 

 somewhat humped up with the disease, I came across 

 a huge pile of sawdust that had lain all the morning 

 under the rays of the warm September sun. Here 

 was an opportunity my back was aching for. At 

 once I squatted upon the top of the pile, and its 

 warmth was so grateful that I sat there for a couple 

 of hours, sandwiched, as it were, between the heat of 

 the sun above and the heat of the sawdust below. 

 Do I guarantee this an absolute cure ? By no means. 

 The ailment is too aggressive a fighter to be scared 

 away by a pile of hot sawdust. I merely recommend 

 it as a kink-soother. 



Perhaps the reader may think it strange that after 

 all my rough experience I still persist in roaming the 

 forests in search of big game. Well, perhaps it is 

 strange. One of my friends, who is something of a 

 wag, declares that on these trips I am not after game 

 at all, but in search of lumbago. " For everybody 

 knows," he argues, " that lumbago is a disease of the 

 lumbar regions, and therefore a forest is the most 



