A Frontier Doctor Page: 32
xv, 260 p. : ill., ports. ; 22 cm.View a full description of this book.
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A FRONTIER DOCTOR
hotel was not exactly what would be termed sound-proof,
as all partitions were canvas. Two small chairs completed
the equipment.
Once between midnight and morning, while I was there,
a man occupying a bed in the rear room on my side of the
hall came in slightly drunk, found some one in his bed,
started a row, and gun play was made, resulting in both
being badly wounded. In the morning it was found that
two bullets had passed through every partition on that
side of the building, about five feet from the floor. I was
about the only one who profited by that affair.
I purchased a small gold-scales outfit, had an old
miner in the house teach me how to weigh dust, and after
putting a card in the paper announcing the arrival of a
new doctor, I spread out my few drugs and instruments,
and was ready for business.
I held my office hours from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. I had a
roommate of course every night, in the other bed, and
this often made it more or less awkward, as not infre-
quently the man-on-the-other-side would come in after
midnight well soused and want to sleep all the next day.
Being big and strong, I would pick him up, like a movie
villain abducting the hero, and dump him into an empty
bed in another room.
A few days after I began my practice I got a call to go
ten miles over the mountains. I responded on horseback
and found a man with an arm badly shot up. He had lost
a good deal of blood and was weak. I fixed him up, was
paid a fat fee in dust - very little money was in circula-
tion at that time in the Black Hills - and returned home.
The day after my mountain trip, I went to the bank
and to my dismay was told that a good part of my dust
was 'phony.' I mounted my mustang, made another fast
ride over the mountains, determined to bring back some
good dust or a scalp, but when I arrived I found that the32
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Hoyt, Henry Franklin. A Frontier Doctor, book, 1929; Boston, Massachusetts. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143532/m1/56/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.