“Yes,” replied Fenn, “and I had quite a time finding it.”
“I should think you would. He’s a regular walking drug store. If he’d throw all his powders, pills and liquids away, and live out of doors, he’d be all right in a month. I’m not making fun of him, but I wish somebody would, some day. Maybe it would cure him.”
“He seemed pretty sick,” ventured Bart.
“But he was lively enough when he smelled that ammonia I gave him by mistake,” said Fenn.
“Ammonia?” questioned the commander, and the boys then told him what had happened. “Ha! Ho!” laughed Captain Wiggs. “That is the best joke yet! Ammonia! Oh my! I’ll bet he was lively! Why, I can smell it yet!”
The little experience seemed to do Mr. Ackerman good, and it was several days before he complained again. Then he was seemingly as badly off as ever, taking some sort of medicine almost every hour. But the boys understood him now, and did not waste so much sympathy on him.
The Modoc steamed on, covering many miles over Lake Huron until, towards evening one afternoon, Captain Wiggs announced that morning would find them at the entrance of St. Mary’s river, the connecting link between Lakes Huron and Superior.
“Can you boys stand a little jarring?” he asked, as they were in the main cabin, after supper.
“Jarring? Why?” inquired Frank.
“Because we’ve got to jump the ship over St. Mary’s falls, and we don’t always make it the first time,” was the answer, given with much gravity. “Often we miss and fall back, and it jars the ship up quite a bit.”