Miner's paralysis! Even the Woolsey boys knew the symptoms. They lifted the old man up and put him on his bed, gave him whiskey, and then consulted as to their next duty. They could not leave him there alone upon the mountain-top; nor was it an easy matter to descend to the bottom of the cañon for help.
"You stay here, Charley," said John, "and I'll go for Dr. Mason."
"That won't do, Jack. It will be five o'clock before you can cross the cañon, and dark by the time you reach North Bloomfield. Alleghany City is the place to strike for. Get Dr. Lefevre over there. They say he can cure paralysis if any man can."
"It's no easy trip to Alleghany, either," said John thoughtfully. "The cañon of Wolf Creek is as bad as the cañon of the Middle Yuba. And there's Kanaka Creek beyond."
"Then again, whichever way you go," responded his brother, "you ain't sure of finding the doctor. Better take the old man with us and make for Alleghany, I guess."
This seemed the most feasible plan. So they saddled Palmer's sure-footed horse, put his sick master into the saddle, and started down the trail across the cañon of Wolf Creek. It was a long, hard trip. To the Woolsey boys, holding and steadying the old man, the cañon had never seemed so deep. At last they reached the Plumbago Mine, on the opposite height, where they borrowed two mules to carry them the rest of the way. It was easy going now as far as Chipp's Flat. Late in the evening they climbed the steep trail from Kanaka Creek to Alleghany City, took their charge to the hotel, and hunted up Dr. Lefevre.
So began a long, hard sickness, the first serious sickness Robert Palmer had suffered since his arrival in the gold fields. For days he lay helpless. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to take notice of his surroundings, he begged to be moved from the noisy hotel, with its sickening smells, to the cabin of an old friend named Lee, who lived some distance from the main street.
There are not more than half a dozen streets in Alleghany City, the principal one being the road along the mountain-side, which, leaving the village, climbs up over an ancient stream of lava, and crossing the summit of the mountain plunges down to Forest City. Dr. Lefevre was the only doctor in the two "cities," and spent much of his time crossing the high ridge that separates the two. He often wished that the miners, in pursuit of gold-bearing gravel, had dug a passage-way through the ridge, as they had done on the opposite side of Kanaka Creek, where there was a tunnel from Chipp's Flat to Minnesota. But on this side of the creek they mined for quartz. However, the miners were good patients, and some day the doctor hoped to return to France with the gold his skill had earned him.
With a Frenchman's zeal for science and thoroughness, he was a most excellent physician. By the first of October, Robert Palmer was cured. To the doctor it seemed almost a miracle; and he cautioned the old miner kindly:
"Mr. Palmer, one can never tell about this malady. To-day you are well, thanks to your remarkable constitution and a Frenchman's art. Next month, perhaps"—and he shrugged his shoulders.