THE HORSES RESCUE. 161 



be. Soon there came a man with a lame horse. This 

 was a common thing at all hours of the day at my 

 shop. Some came thirty miles and farther. All came 

 to get cured for the price of shoeing the horse. My 

 fame had spread far and wide. This horse had been 

 lame about two years. His shoulders had been blis- 

 tered, and his cords, too, until the hair was all off. 

 He, too, was sent to me. He wanted me to tell him 

 what ailed his horse. Tired nearly to death, talking 

 with so many from mornincr until nif^ht, and workinor 

 at the same time, I told him it was coffin-joint diffi- 

 culty, as it was. But that was not all of his trouble; 

 he wanted to know if I could cure it. 



"Yes," I replied, "I can, but it will require some 

 powerful medicine to reach that." 



I heated up my water, prepared the foot, put it to 

 soak in the tub, went to the desk, which I unlocked, 

 and took these two bottles of medicine out. I poured 

 some of the contents of each in the water. Then I 

 put the bottles in the desk again and locked it. After 

 this horse's foot had soaked a short time I dressed and 

 shod it. All that ailed this horse, or rather the cause of 

 his lameness, was having irons put on his feet by some 

 one that knew but very little about the horse. Some 

 smith had cut off the sides of his foot, set the shoe 

 too narrow, and rnn it out at the toe. The lever 

 would have made him lame if nothing more had taken 

 place. The coifin-joint was out of harmony. I told 

 the owner he would go better by degrees ; in ten days 

 he would be well. At the end of that time he came 

 to my shop and told me it turned out as I said it 

 would. I did not practice this new process of curing 



