THE horse's rescue. 165 



and is so stiff and sore he can hardly move. If 

 he does it hurts him fearfully, and yet tlie owner of 

 this horse is a horse doctor. There is a boy sixteen 

 vears old that takes care of this stable of horses. He 

 was blamed for this horse's stiffness, which I well knew 

 he was not to blame for, and I am going to rescue him 

 before I get through this work. I talked with this boy, 

 and told him the cause of his favorite horse's trouble, 

 and told him he vould go on from bad to worse unless 

 it was removed. Then I walked away. I had given 

 up all hopes of getting him. It was not the pay that 

 I was after. I would give ten dollars to get him, but 

 I well knew I could not get him if I had offered to 

 do it in this wav. Hundreds of such men have 

 talked with me for hours at a time about their 

 stiff and crippled horses, and told me they would give 

 me big money if I would cure them, but it was all 

 dead wind. It would have been just as well if it had 

 never been blown. The horse remained a cripple the 

 same. I have cured, or nearly so, hundreds- of these 

 horses; so much so, they called them cured, and they 

 thought they were at least. They talked so, when I 

 well knew^ they were not. I did relieve their suffer- 

 ing some for the time. With all of my hard work, I 

 could get but little credit in this town. 



While working in my shop some months after this 

 talk with this boy about Billy Crawford, he came to 

 mv shop. He had never been in my shop that I knew 

 of at that time. In a pitiful way he approached me. 

 "Mri Doan, will you cure Billy for me? I will pay 

 you. I have money of my own," 



" It will hardly do for me to go to work on him 



