Village Horse Doctor by Ben K. Green Page A

injections, and I would drench them by the mouth at the same time. Most of these sheep would be saved and this day’s work wasn’t unusual.
    I was hoping I could treat them all at one time and leaveenough medicine so that the herders could continue to treat them after I was gone. It took a great deal of time and patience to show the herders how to drench these sheep and where in the hindquarter to “shoot” them that would get the best results with the least effort, and I was hoping that I might get away from there by late afternoon, in time to cross the river early in the night, which meant that I might get back to my office around midnight.
    We had treated all but two hundred head when seven horsemen appeared on the high bluff to the south and west of us about a mile away. The herders noticed them before I did and began to carry on a rather strained conversation in low tones among themselves and they couldn’t help but show that there was some anxiety among them.
    I didn’t speak much Mexican, but I savvied a lot more than I could speak and picked the word
banditos
out of their conversation. The old ranchero who had brought me out and who owned the sheep had paid very little attention to the conversation or to the riders. When we were finished, I said to him, “What do those damn bandits want? Mutton to eat?”
    “Doc-tor, they plan, I think, to rob you if you leave here tonight.”
    “What if I don’t leave? You and your herders don’t have any guns.”
    “That is sad, but true, but they would be afraid to enter my camp because General Grearea is my kinsman, and this is known to the Capitán Bandito, but after you leave here, it will be hard for me to guarantee you any protection. For this I am sorry.”
    I asked in a suspicious tone of voice, “How did they know I was here?”
    The old ranchero studied a few minutes and then said, “The officer at the border is a cousin to the Capitán Bandito,and the little boy that rode with us is a cousin to both of them. I am afraid there may be some connection.”
    I told him I believed I would spend the night and that I knew how we could protect my car and its contents. He didn’t know it, but I intended to be some of the contents.
    He asked, “How is this, Doc-tor?”
    I explained to him that these sick sheep were listless and tired, and it would not be possible to excite them into running by gunfire or riding into them horseback and that we would drive my car out from the spring a piece, and for the herders to bring the sickest of the sheep and bed them down around the car. Then bring the rest of the sheep and bed them down beyond the sick ones. He knew as well as I that neither a horse nor a bandito afoot could wade through that mass of woolly creatures with enough speed to slip up on any of us. The old ranchero seemed to think that this would be all right, and gave instructions in Mexican, and the herders and dogs began to bring the sheep up after I had moved my car.
    We ate supper about sundown and were sittin’ around the spring a little while before we went to bed. One of the old herders had a very chronic old running sore on his leg just above his knee, and he pulled his britches leg up and showed me the sore by the firelight and wanted some
medicina
to put on it. I told the old ranchero to explain to him that I really needed to scrape out some of those old dead tissues and cause blood to come into the sore in order that the medicino would enter the blood and the tissues to make it get well. Whether the old herder understood this or not, I don’t know but he nodded his consent.
    I used cocaine to deaden the pain and cleaned out the old wound, which was probably caused by a mesquite thorn or bruise and had been there several years without healing.I packed it with sulfanilamide powder and put a bandage around his leg and told him to wear it a few days until the sore quit running and scabbed over.
    The herders watched very intently and made much comment that I