Once
or twice in descending the mountain Concho had overhung the cliff and
looked down upon the curving horse-shoe of a bay below him,--distant yet
many miles. Earlier in the afternoon he had seen the gilt cross on the
white-faced Mission flare in the sunlight, but now all was gone. By
the time he reached the highway of the town it was quite dark, and he
plunged into the first fonda at the wayside, and endeavored to forget
his woes and his weariness in aguardiente. But Concho's head ached, and
his back ached, and he was so generally distressed that he bethought him
of a medico,--an American doctor,--lately come into the town, who had
once treated Concho and his mule with apparently the same medicine, and
after the same heroic fashion. Concho reasoned, not illogically, that if
he were to be physicked at all he ought to get the worth of his
money. The grotesque extravagance of life, of fruit and vegetables,
in California was inconsistent with infinitesimal doses. In Concho's
previous illness the doctor had given him a dozen 4 grain quinine
powders.
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