“We’ll not be able to advance another mile unless something can be done to cure the cattle’s feet,” exclaimed the Captain the next morning, when his teamsters came together for consultation.
“I have been studying the case during the night,” said Mrs. McAlpin, who was preparing breakfast. “It is cool and pleasant now, but it will be terribly hot by nine o’clock. We must treat the sore feet of our sufferers to a heroic cure, and get them out on the range, away from the sand of the public road, before the sun gets over the hills. We can’t drive a hoof over the road to-day.”
“I’d like to know how in blazes we’re going to doctor the cattle’s feet without medicine,” cried Hal. “We haven’t even enough o’ ‘Number Six’ on hand to give my off-leader’s left foot a thorough treatment.”
“I guess we have everything we need,” replied the Little Doctor. “Bring me your fullest tar-bucket. There, that’s encouraging. Got any turpentine, Captain? That’s good. Now bring me an iron pot, Susannah. Here’s a good bed of glowing coals. There,” she cried, as she emptied the liquid tar into the iron kettle. “Now let’s add the turpentine, and I’ll heat the mixture as slowly as possible over these red-hot coals. It is fortunate that the flames are dead, otherwise we might set our dish on fire and spoil our broth. Have you any oakum?”
“Not a bit. Who’d ’a’ thought we’d need oakum on a land-lubbers’ journey like this?” said the Captain.
The Little Doctor knitted her brows. “Have you some Manila rope and a big pan?” she asked.
“We have mother’s clothes-line, if that will do,” said Jean.
“Yo’ uns not gwine to empty dat stuff in my dish-pan, honey?” exclaimed Susannah, in indignant protest, as Mary was fetching the pan.
Mrs. McAlpin laughed.
The seething mixture was lifted dexterously from the coals in the nick of time to prevent an accident by fire. It was then emptied into the dish-pan and stirred to the consistency of blackstrap,—a commodity with which the wayfarers were familiar,—and pieces of the tarred rope were made ready for placing between the doctored hoofs.
“We’ll try our Little Doctor’s remedy on Scotty’s off-leader first,” said Hal. “If it should kill him, there will be only one dead, and he’s nearly dead anyhow.”
The poor beast bellowed pitifully as his hoof was plunged into the almost scalding mixture; but like the lassoed victim of a branding iron, he could not get away, and each hoof received its treatment in its turn.
By the doctor’s order, a tent had been cut into convenient patches; and the seared feet of the afflicted brute, after a liberal supply of the flour of sulphur had been added to the tar and turpentine, were securely wrapped with the pieces and bound with rope, to protect them from the dust and gravel of the roads.
By the time that each disabled animal had been subjected to this heroic treatment, it was long past noon, and the Captain decided to turn the teams back upon the range for the remainder of the day.
“May I take a ride on Sukie, daddie dear?” asked Jean. “I’ll find good grass for her, and plenty of it.”
“Yes, Jean. Take her to yonder ravine, where you see a clump of cottonwoods. You’ll be pretty sure to find some tender grass at their roots.”
Jean leaped nimbly to the saddle and cantered leisurely away.
Suddenly a bronzed and handsome horseman rode up beside her and lifted his hat,—a large sombrero, surmounting a pair of square shoulders that sported a gay serape.
“Good-morning, little miss. Or would you call it afternoon? I had stopped under the cottonwoods to graze my horse, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to accost you. Going to California?”
“No; to Oregon.”
“A God-forsaken country that. Rains thirteen months in every year.”
“Have you ever been there?”
The stranger shook his head. “I’ve had rain enough in England to do me for the rest of my life.”
“A little of the Oregon rains we’ve read about would be a godsend if we could have it now,” said Jean, mopping her perspiring face with the curtain of her sunbonnet, and glancing ruefully at the brazen sky.
“May I ride beside you for a little distance?”
“If we keep in sight of the wagons, sir.”
“You’re not afraid of me, I hope?”
He was close beside her now, so close he could have grasped her bridle-rein.
“Afraid? Of course not. I am not afraid of any gentleman.”
“Do you belong to yonder camp?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And there are two ladies travelling with you,—a widow and her daughter?”
“There are a grass widow and a nigger, sir.”
“Now see here, little one,” and his voice grew harsh and loud, “you’ve been coached; that’s evident. Don’t be frightened. I don’t mean to harm you. But I am no longer deceived. Will you do me a favor?”
He was reading her face anxiously.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“Will you carry a note for me to Mrs. Benson?”
“I don’t know, sir. See! They’re bringing in the cattle. I must hurry back to camp.”
“Wait a little, miss. I must write a note.”
“I haven’t promised to give it to anybody, sir.”
“But you’ll do it,” he said, thrusting a few hastily written, unsealed lines into her hand. “Give that to the young lady’s mother. I feel that I can trust you. Here’s a dollar. You will not read the note, nor say a word about it to any one?”
“You can trust me, sir, but I do not want your dollar.”
“Keep it, child.”
He wheeled and was gone. She watched him disappear in a cloud of dust, and hid the note away in the bosom of her dress.
“He trusted me, and I won’t read it, though I’d be glad to know its contents,” she whispered to herself. “Why does Fate make me the depositary of other people’s affairs and then burden me with secrecy? I’m only an ignorant girl; but I know enough about the secrets of more than one of our fellow-travellers to explode bombs in several directions if I’d tell!”
“I am overjoyed at the success of my first practice as a veterinary doctor,” said Mrs. McAlpin the next day.
“We’re all glad,” said the Captain. “Small use any man would have for this world if it weren’t for the women to help him out under difficulties.”
“Poor Captain! How he misses his wife!” she thought, as she sought the wagon where Scotty lay.
“I’d get well a great deal faster if I had you for a nurse, Daphne,” he said appealingly.
“Nature is doing her best for you. She’s mending your bones thoroughly. If we patched you up in too big a hurry, we’d soon be in trouble again.”
“But I feel like a chained eagle, lying here.”
“Captain Ranger is making you a pair of crutches, Mr. Burns. You’ll soon be out again on your well foot, if you obey orders. Where’s mamma?”
“In the shadow of the wagon, yonder.”
Mrs. Benson was resting in the shade, indulging in a silent reverie. “Are all the teachings of my life to be overthrown?” she said, as she thrust a note into her pocket and buried her face in her hands. “Can it be true that Daphne was right and I was wrong? What will people say? Daphne has good principles, but she’s as unsentimental as a Mandan squaw. She has no more romance in her make-up than black Susannah. Yet,” and a fluttering hope welled up in her heart, “she’s a true and faithful daughter. I would to Heaven that all the people in the world were as good.”
She produced her treasured note again, and read it stealthily.
“Yes, yes! it can be managed, and none of the curious will ever be the wiser,” she said, after due reflection. “It is indeed fortunate that he’s been compelled by the law of entail to take his mother’s name. Nobody will know him in Oregon.”
Mrs. McAlpin found Scotty at camping time with a voracious appetite and a temper like a caged bear.
“Where have you kept yourself through all this blistering afternoon?” he asked, munching his food heartily.
“I can’t stay with all my patients all the time, Mr. Burns, especially as so many of them are quadrupeds, with the hoof-ail.”
“I suppose, then, that I am to be classed as a biped, with the leg-ail.”
“Exactly.”
“Ouch! oh!” he exclaimed with a grimace, as the knitting bones gave a sudden twinge, reminding him that they were awake and on duty. “These infernal bandages are loose again, I hope.”
“Your bandages are doing nicely, sir. The Captain will have your crutches ready in a day or two. Then you can take some exercise.”
“What have you done with those hideous black garments, Daphne?”
“Do you like these gray ones better?”
“Yes, I like the gray ones better.”
“So does this abounding dust. My black clothes were getting rusty, so I made a contribution of them to the water nymphs of the Platte.”
“Why did you wear those weeds?”
“They served my purpose, sir.”
“You almost provoke me into profanity, Mrs. McAlpin; you are so mysteriously non-committal.”
“Glad to hear it. Men don’t feel like swearing when death is staring them in the face.”
“Your supper is getting cold, and Mrs. Benson says you must hurry up.” The intruder, as usual, was Jean.
“I will see you later, Mr. Burns,” said Mrs. McAlpin, and she ran away, laughing.
“You seem very happy this evening, mamma,” she said, as with cup and plate in hand she seated herself on a wagon-tongue.
Mrs. Benson blushed. “Why don’t you eat?” she asked, evading her daughter’s question.
“I hardly know. But I am out of sorts. Just think of men coming out on a journey like this, with ailing wives and unborn children, with no adequate preparation for their needs! I left one woman, less than two hours ago, with newly born twins, and a yearling squalling like mad at the foot of her bed. The mother was as docile as a kitten, and a hundred times more helpless.”
“Where was the father?”
“Oh, he was shambling around, helpless and in the way. He was kindness personified; but he was as useless as a monkey. When woman’s true history shall have been written, her part in the upbuilding of this nation will astound the world. I’ve seen heroines on this journey who far outrank the Alexanders, Washingtons, and Napoleons of any of our school histories. Yonder’s a herald coming to announce another case! Will you accompany me, mamma? I can ask Captain Ranger to stay with Mr. Burns.”
“Not to-night, Daphne. I am very tired. And you know I have no patience with a woman doctor, anyway. Women were seen and not heard when I was a girl.”