n Ranger
to compound the mixture for the ailing feet of the stranger's cattle, overheard the shrill-voiced visitor add, " I never did take no stock in them women doctors."
"I wanted water," continued the patient, "an' couldn't git none; so I waited till nobody was watchin' and jist stole out o' the tent in the night an' swallered all I could hoi' from a canteen; and I mended from the word * go.The stuff was as warm as dish-water, but I wanted it so bad I didn't stop to taste it."
All day the convalescent wrestled with weakness; but as the afflicted cattle could not go forward till the following morning, she moved languidly about the camp and fed her family with beans and bacon, with the neverfailing accompaniment of black coffee, which Captain Ranger declared was "strong enough to bear up an iron wedge."
The scenery became more diversified as the travellers continued their journey up the Platte. Gradually the heat became less suffocating. Desert sands gave way to alluvial valleys, and the health of nian and beast improved. On the opposite, or south side of the river, the scenery was strikingly unlike that of the plain through which the emigrant road ran, winding its sinewy length in and out, over the vast, untilled fields that lay asleep in the sunshine, awaiting the fructifying power of the autumn rains, and the future labor of plough and seedsman.
It was now the first of July. The heavy duties of the day were ovef, the short summer evening had come, and Captain Ranger lay upon the grass, playing with his own little ones, Susannah's George Washington, and the three babies of Sally O'Dowd.
The evening breezes stirred his hair and beard and filled his lungs with a sensation of vigor he had not enjoyed since bidding farewell to his faithful wife.
"The story goes that some prospectors have discovered gold in the foot-hills across the big drink," said Yank,
