"Is she ill?" he inquired, solicitously.
"Ill! She is sick at her stomach and no wonder!" He was plainly angry and appeared to direct his wrath at Wallie.
While Wallie wondered, it did not seem a propitious moment to ask questions, and he would have turned away had Mr. Stott not said peremptorily:
"Wait a minute. I want to speak to you."
Having laid Mrs. Stott, who was shuddering, on her blankets and administered a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia, he dropped the flap of her teepee and beckoned Wallie curtly:
"You come with me."
Wallie could not do else than follow him, his wonder growing as he led the way to the camp kitchen where Mr. Hicks was engaged at the moment in the task which he referred to as "pearl-diving."
He did not appear surprised to see them in his domain, on the contrary he seemed rather to be expecting them, for immediately he took his hands out of the dish-water, wiped them on the corner of his apron, and reaching for a convenient stick of stove-wood laid it on the corner of the table with a certain significance in the action.
"Make yourself to home, gents," he said, hospitably, indicating the wagon-tongue and a cracker-box for seats, respectively. "Anything in particular I can do for you?" He looked at Mr. Stott guilelessly.
"You can answer me a few questions." Mr. Stott fixed a sternly accusing eye upon him. "Hicks, was, or was not, that trout you gave my wife, wormy?"