"Wah! this not good," and Quonab glanced about the close,
fly-infested room. "I must make lodge." He turned up the cover of
the bedding; three or four large, fiat brown things moved slowly
out of the light. "Yes, I make lodge."
It was night now, and all retired; the newcomers to the barn.
They had scarcely entered, when a screaming of poultry gave a
familiar turn to affairs. On running to the spot, it proved not a
mink or coon, but Skookum, up to his old tricks. On the appearance
of his masters, he fled with guilty haste, crouched beneath the post
that he used to be, and soon again was, chained to.
In the morning Quonab set about his lodge, and Rolf said: "I've
got to go to Warren's for sugar." The sugar was part truth and
part blind. As soon as he heard the name swamp fever, Rolf
remembered that, in Redding, Jesuit's bark (known later as
quinine) was the sovereign remedy. He had seen his mother
administer it many times, and, so far as he knew, with uniform
success. Every frontier (or backwoods, it's the same) trader
carries a stock of medicine, and in two hours Rolf left Warren's
counter with twenty-five pounds of maple sugar and a bottle of
quinine extract in his pack.
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