The Press., 1898-06-16
MIKE GOT EVEN.

MIKE GOT EVEN.
 It was a beautiful morning. Not a cloud in the June sky, not leaf stir ring on the old cottonwood tree by the spring. The cattle, after 8 restless night, were lying in close order and lazily chewing the cud or stretched out broadside on the thick green carpet.
 On the edge of the bunch few calves were frisking about with tails up, and one impatient youngster was putting away at his drowsing mother with 8 vigorous suggestion that it was time to rise and furnish forth the morning meal.
 On an adjacent hill the horse wran- gler, still draped to the heels in the yell low slicker he had donned in the thun- der shower of the night, sat idly in the saddle with hand on his horse's hips, looking away over the pea green range of early summer to where the noun tain tops glowed in the rising sun.
 The cooks fire of damp wood, kindled directly under the tree, sent up thick smoke which spread throughout the branches, but collected above them, ex- tending one straight, slender. lofty col umn into the blue. Some blackbirds were scolding about being smoked out of their leafy home, and on every side resounded the mellow notes of the mead ow lark.
 It was a beautiful morning, but no one in camp was happy, for every mans clothes were wet, and Mike Tussler had the toothache. Now, it is we'll known that when the big back tooth of 8 big buck Irishman takes a notion to ache it is wholly different proposition from an ordinary case of mal de dents. -~a-
 "You don't know anything about it. ," Mike declared. "This isn't just tooth ache. It aches all over. Did you ever see one of them fiery comets with a long, forked tail on to a bright head? Well, this pain is just like that. My tooth s the redhot head of the thing, and the tails are going all through me. ''
 Mike lay down on his back, and the cook looked in his mouth.
 "Did you ever see a chestnut or acorn with wormhole in it? That's the way with your tooth. Just little bit of hole right into it. It's terrible small hole to worry about.''
 "Nothing small about the feel of it," said Tussler, and he asked for day off to SC and get it "yanked.
 He could not be spared that day, but the next morning went away to the nearest town. It was always a day's ride, and. as is the preverse way of ach- ing teeth, his began to feel much better when he came in sight of the village. He felt so much relieved by the time he had ridden down the one street, with its square front, one story wooden build ings, that when he was finally seated in the dentists chair he didn't want to have the tooth pulled.
 "I was just coming along the street," he said to the dentist, "and saw your brand on the door. So come in to ask you to look in my mouth and tell me how old be. ''
 "Old enough to take better care of your tseth,," he announced, after look ing them over.
 "Have got to have the lasso on that back one?' asked Tussler.
 "You have got to have it filled at once.''
 "What'll it cost?" asked the cautious Irishman.
 "Three dollars" said the dentist. "I but one price,"
 "Well," said Mike, "it don't hurt any now. I guess I won't let the job today"
 ''That's robbery" he assured him. self. as he went away to copper the ace for five and lose it. "The cook said it was an awful small hole"
 The next morning. however. his tooth having meanwhile resumed business, he was waiting at the door when the den- tist came down.
 "You don't get up so early as we do on the range by about four hours" said he. ''I been standing here all night. I want me tooth filled fuIl.'
 So Mike had the work done and paid 50 cents extra for capping the nerve. "And the whole thing didn't take him an hour, " he reported when he returned to camp. "I've been robbed.''
 Mike clings to an opinion with proper tenacity and the conviction that the dentist had "beat him out of good $2" laid a debt and duty upon him which he had no idea of shirking.
 "What you going to do about it?" the boys asked.
 "Wait," says Mike.
 The hard routine work of the spring round up went on for some weeks. Again the boys asked, "What are you going to do about yo1r dentist?'' -....
 Wait says Mike again.
 When thel is work to be done, COW camp is stirring at daybreak. Getting out in the gray dawn one morning, it was seen that 8 regular tenderfoot outfit with tents had come ill during the night and pitched their camp near the cow- boys.
 Mike strolled over and poked his head into several covered wagons, bringing back the report that no one was awake
 "What are they loaded with?" was asked.
 Fertilizer, :" said Mike.
 "Come of, they all cried; s'not in those dude wagonsl''
 "Give you my word, d," insisted Tuss- Ter; mot @ thing ill 'em but old bones'
 About this time Mike became very