The Red Cloud chief., 1877-05-10
THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT
EASY.

He was a spare man, and, physically,
an Unconditional man, but at first
glance scarcely a seedy man. The in
dicatiOns of reduced circumstances in
the male Of the better class are, I fancy,
first visible in the boots and shirt, the
boots Extensively exhibiting a degree of
polish inconsistent with their dilapida-
ted condition, and the shirt showing an
extent of ostentatious surface that is
invariably fatal to the threadbare waist
coat that it partially covers. He was
a pale man, and 1 fancied still paler
from his black clothes.
He handed me a note.
1t was from q certain physician; a
man of broad culture and broader ex-
perience; a man who had devoted the
greater part of his active life to the
alienation of sorrow and suffering;
a man who had lived up to the noble
Vows Uf u noble profession; a mau who
locked in his honorable breast the
secrets of a hundred families, whose
face was as kindly, whose touch was as
gentle in the wards of the great public
hospitals as it was beside the laced cur.
tains of the dying Narcissa a man who,
through long contact with suffering,
had acquired a universal tenderness and
breadth of kindly philosophy; a man
who, day and night, was at the beck and
call of Anguish a man who never asked
the creed, belief, moral or worldly stand.
ing OF the sufferer, or even his ability
to pay the few coins that enabled him
the physician) to exist and practice his
calling; in brief, a man who 80 nearly
lived up to the example of the Great
Master that it seems strange 1 am
writing of him as q doctor of medi.
cine and not of divinity.
The note was in pencil, characteristic
cally brief, and a thus:
Here is the man I spoke of. He
ought to be good material for you"
For a moment 1 sat, looking fromthe
note to the man, and sounding the dim
perilous depths" of my memory for the
meaning of this mysterious communi.
cation. The good material" however.
soon relieved my embarrassment. by
putting his hand on his waistcoat, com.
ing toward me, and saying, "It's lust
here you can feel it"
1t was not necessary for me to do 80.
In q fash 1 remembered that my medi.
cal friend had told me of q certain DOOR
patient, once a soldier. who, among his
other trials and uncertainties, was at.
iicted with an aneurism caused BY the
buckle of his knapsack pressing upon
the arch Of the aorta. It was liable to
bFs.stat any shock or any moment. The
poor fellows yoke had indeed been too
heavy.
In the presence of such q tremendous
possibility l think for an instant 1 felt
anxious only about myself. What I
should do; how dispose of the body:
how explain the circumstances of his
taking off; how evade the ubiquitous
reporter and the Coroner's inquest:
how q suspicion might arise that 1 had
In some way. through negligence, or for
some dark purpose, unknown to the
jury, precipitated the catastrophe, all
flashed before me. Even the note
with its darby suggestive offer of
good MATERIAL for me-looked diaboIi.
cally significant What might not an
intelligent lawyer make Of it?
Itore up instantly, and with feverish
courtesy begged him to be seated.
"You don't care to feel itP" he asked.
little anxiously.
MOI
Nor see itP'
NO"
He sighed, q trile sadly. as if l had
rejected the only favor he could bestow.
[ saw at once that he had been under
.reuuent exhibition to the doctors, and
hat he was, perhaps, q tIife vain OF
his attention. This perception was
q moment later BY his pro-
tucing q copy Of . medical magazine,
nth the remark that on the sixth page
would find Z full statement Of his