Horace Annesley Vachell

Bunch Grass Horace Annesley Vachell

Excerpt: ...ain't heart only," said Dan."Stomach?" suggested Pete."All overish, mostly.""You ain't bin readin' the advertisements o' quack doctors, hev ye?""Not since I was twenty. They did give me fits at one time. Boys"--he began to scratch himself furiously--"I've a feelin' as if I was afire inside.""Maw used ter give me sarsaparilla," said Jimmie."My folks," observed Pete, "never tuk nothin' but castor ile. Must ha' downed a barrel o' that when I was a kid.""This thing is drivin' me crazy," said Dan."Wal," replied Pete deliberately, "I know what I'd do, and I'd do it quick. This yere Professor is on the ranch, and he's a dandy. After the rodeo, you jest sachay up to him an' tell him what you've tole us. If he don't take the kinks outer yer, he's a fraud. See!""Gosh," exclaimed Dan, "I'll do it!" They turned in. The Professor next day watched the rodeo from a platform erected near the biggest of our corrals. This was his first visit to California, and he was mightily impressed by the skill and vigour of the vaqueroes. To Ajax he declared that he was amazed to find such splendid specimens in that particular locality. Ajax smiled. "We have not much," he said, "but we feel that we have a right to expect high health. We used to say," he added, "that sickness was unknown in our hills till a wise doctor settled here from the East."The Professor frowned."I rose at six," he said austerely. "I made a microscopical examination of the water in your new spring, which rises, I venture to remind you, through soil which is undoubtedly diatomaceous.""That sounds awful.""Diatoms in a fossilised condition are silicious, and they are to be found in Virginia, in Bermuda, and here.""Professor, I am an ignoramus.""Then it is my duty to inform you that the man or woman who drinks water from that spring is swallowing millions of tiny flint knives, hard as diamond dust--indeed, diatomaceous earth is used commercially as a polishing powder.""You mean that if we drink that water...