"Good," Charley approved. "You come over to camp before you go and I give you plenty of money to buy grub with."
"That will settle the food question for quite a while," the lad observed, as the two boys sauntered back to the tent.
"We don't really need anything from town for quite a while, except a doctor. I am going to see if I cannot do something for the sick man, but if he gets worse, we will have to get a couple of Indian ponies and go in for a doctor. By leaving the road and taking to the woods one can pick their way into town, but it would make a long, tiresome, dangerous journey, and we don't want to attempt it unless we absolutely have to."
Charley found the sick man about as he had left him, hot with fever and tossing restlessly. After viewing his condition carefully, the lad went back to his tent and got out the little medicine chest they usually carried with them.
"What are you going to give him?" Walter inquired.
"A big dose of calomel now, and as soon as the fever passes off I will give him two grain doses of quinine every two hours," said Charley promptly. "That's what the doctors always give for these swamp fevers. I am not much afraid of this kind of fever. It seldom kills and when properly treated it is easily cured. Of course it leaves one weak for a while, and not able to do much work. I wish, though, that I knew what to do to keep the mud from making sores on the men. I am more afraid of the sores than I am of the fever."
"I don't know anything about medicine," said Walter thoughtfully, "but it is evident that the sores come from germs or poisons in the mud. Now if the men would put carbolic acid in the water when they bathe morning and night and then put on some carbolic salve, I believe it would check or kill that which makes the sores."
"I believe you're right," Charley agreed. "We will have them try it anyway. As soon as I can get to town I am going to get leggins for them all. That will keep the mud from coming in direct contact with their skins. Well, we had better get what rest we can now. Those fellows have finished with the bridges and they will likely be back to make us more trouble to-night. I don't feel as though I had got enough sleep anyway."
The two lads wisely retired to their cots, where they gained a couple of hours of good hard slumber from which they were awakened by the arrival of Willie John returning from his errand. "Wagons come pretty soon, bring plenty grub," he informed them.
Before dark the wagons began to arrive, loaded with yams, pumpkins, corn, and young pigs, besides all the flour, sugar and coffee Mr. Bowers had been able to spare from the trading-post.