"Why, you'd hardly recognize the boy!" Blaze exclaimed; then he added his appeal to his daughter's. But they could not arouse the sick man from his coma.
"He asked me to take him to Las Palmas," Strange explained. "Looks to me like a sunstroke. You'd ought to hear him rave when he gets started."
Paloma turned an agonized face to her father. "Get a doctor, quick," she implored; "he frightens me."
But Mrs. Strange had followed, and now she spoke up in a matter-of-fact tone: "Doctor nothing," she said. "I know more than all the doctors. Paloma, you go into the house and get a bed ready for him, and you men lug him in. Come, now, on the run, all of you! I'll show you what to do." She took instant charge of the situation, and when Dave refused to leave the carriage and began to fight off his friends, gabbling wildly, it was she who quieted him. Elbowing Blaze and her husband out of the way, she loosed the young man's frenzied clutch from the carriage and, holding his hands in hers, talked to him in such a way that he gradually relaxed. It was she who helped him out and then supported him into the house. It was she who got him up-stairs and into bed, and it was she who finally stilled his babble.
"The poor man is burning up with a fever," she told the others, "and fevers are my long suit. Get me some towels and a lot of ice."
Blaze, who had watched the snake-charmer's deft ministrations with mingled amazement and suspicion, inquired: "What are you going to do with ice? Ice ain't medicine."
"I'm going to pack his head in it."
"God'l'mighty!" Blaze was horrified. "Do you want to freeze his brain?"
Mrs. Strange turned on him angrily. "You get out of my way and mind your own business. 'Freeze his brain!'" With a sniff of indignation she pushed past the interloper.
But Blaze was waiting for her when she returned a few moments later with bowls and bottles and various remedies which she had commandeered. He summoned sufficient courage to block her way and inquire: