“How soon can you be ready to start?”
“To-morrow, or as soon as the team is ready. We’ll pose as Indians till we get to Oregon. We can camp in the Portland woods till an outfit of clothing can be prepared in which you wouldn’t be ashamed to see your wife and children appear before kings.”
The next morning early, while the Ranger team was yet in camp, and its Captain was not yet awake, an Indian woman, with an unkempt swarm of dusky children, passed him on their westward way, unrecognized.
“Daddie’s in a raging fever!” cried Jean, arousing the Little Doctor.
“We’ll fetch him out all right,” said the doctor, as the frightened children shivered around the fire in the crisp morning air, silent and awe-stricken. “I saw an Indian ‘sweat-house’ near the river-bank after we had encamped last night. We’ll fumigate it, and give your father a thorough steaming, children. Don’t be frightened. He’s caught the mountain fever. Luckily, I have on hand a lot of crude brimstone. I gathered it near Hell Gate.”
“But we mustn’t use the sweat-house without the consent of the Indians,” said Scotty. “Yonder comes a lot of them on horseback now. I’ll see them and make terms.”
The terms having been arranged satisfactorily, the Little Doctor proceeded to make preparations for the reception of her patient.
When the inner surface of the dugout had reached a white heat, the fire was permitted to die, and the place was cleansed of coals and ashes. It was then tested by a thermometer; and when cooled to the proper temperature, the Captain, now almost incoherent from fever, was wrapped in blankets and placed, feet foremost, within its depths, where he lay with his head enveloped with cold, wet towels, leaving only a small aperture at the mouth of the “infernal pit,” as he called it, for air. Thus situated, and perspiring at every pore, he fell asleep.
A delicious, restful languor followed his awakening, and he was aroused, against his protest, to be removed by willing attendants to a closed tent, where he was packed in cold, wet sheets, and left to rest for another hour or more.
“His heart has good action, and he’ll come out all right; but we can’t break camp to-day,” said the Little Doctor.