They
had worked hard all day, driving cattle into the home-pasture for the
spring _rodeo_, and on the morrow they would have to work harder
still, cutting out the steers and branding the calves.
"Who is this Perfessor?" asked Dan.
Jimmie, who was rubbing tallow on to his lariat, answered--
"There's a piece about him in the _Tribune_."
Pete picked up the county paper, which happened to be lying on the
floor. He read aloud, in a sing-song drawl--
"'We are greatly honoured by the presence amongst us of Professor Adam
Chawner, the eminent surgeon and pathologist----'"
"How's that?" demanded Dan.
"Surgeon an' path--ologist."
"What's path--ologist?"
Pete expectorated a contempt for ignorance which he was too polite to
put into words. Then he said suavely--
"A pathologist is a kind o' pathfinder. Comes from the Greek, I
reckon: _path--logus_--skilled in finding noo paths to knowledge.
See!"
"If you ain't a walkin' dictionary!"
"It comes nateral to me," Pete admitted modestly. He continued--
"'The Professor, instead of taking a well-earned holiday in our land
of roses and sunshine, proposes to study at first hand the micrococci
of a deadly disease which, we are given to understand, is peculiar to
this part of California.
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