Helped by a horse doctor

In a dusty cabin on the frontier, a quick‑drawn narrator watches a mystifying showdown between his lanky partner Magpie and a swindling hypnotist who seems to have the townsfolk under his spell. When the hypnotist’s fingers dance and Magpie freezes, the narrator drops his gun on the crook’s head, freeing his friend but taking a violent knock himself. The sudden blow sends him sprawling out into the yard, where he barely escapes a second, more brutal attack.

Bruised and bewildered, he hauls himself to Doc Milliken, the local horse doctor, who patches up his battered brow with a sack‑needle and offers a surprisingly blunt theory about mind‑control. Their conversation draws in the hard‑talking “Dirty Shirt” Jones and a ragtag band of vigilantes, each claiming the hypnotist’s influence runs deeper than anyone imagined. As alliances shift and rumors of secret societies swirl, the narrator finds himself caught between superstition and sharp‑witted frontier justice, all before the day’s heat even settles.