“And so I have,” laughed the missionary, “for this young lady is [our doctor], and a most excellent one she is, too, I can assure you. She was just saying that you didn’t look at all well, and wondering if you were going to have the measles.”
“I had ’em long ago,” answered the lad, “and I never felt better in my life. I was a bit sleepy.”
“Which isn’t surprising after all you have recently undergone,” remarked the doctor, with a winning smile that served to establish friendly relations between them at once. “You see, we have already heard of your brave struggle against our unruly river, and that you may be prepared for them I will tell you at once that there are two more ladies at the station who are quite anxious to meet the hero of so many adventures.”
“Oh!” gasped poor Phil, who had never before been called a hero.
“Yes, but you needn’t look so alarmed. They aren’t half so formidable as I am, for they haven’t the privilege of ordering people to do things that I obtained with my diploma.”
“Are you going to order me to do things?” asked Phil, with recovered self-possession.
“Indeed I am; for as a doctor I dare issue orders even to a steamboat captain,” laughed the young woman. “I am going to order you to take sleep in big doses. It is a famous remedy in this country, for our nights are already seventeen hours long, and steadily lengthening. But, joking aside, I want to congratulate you, Mr. Ryder, on your skilful care of this patient, whose life has been undoubtedly saved by your success in keeping him warm. Although he is still a very sick man, I believe the crisis is past, and that with the nursing he can have on shore he will pull through all right.”
“I’m awfully glad to hear it,” said Phil, “but I’m puzzled to know how we are to get him ashore. I shouldn’t think it would do to carry him over the ice in the face of the wind that is blowing.”