wling nearer, Rolf spied the drummer, pompously
strutting up and down a log some forty yards away. He took steady aim,
not for the head--a strange gun, at forty yards--for the body. At the
crack, the bird fell dead, and in Rolf's heart there swelled up a little
gush of joy, which he believed was all for the sake of the invalid, but
which a finer analysis might have proved to be due quite as much to
pride in himself and his newly bought gun.

Night was coming on when he got back, and he found the Dutch parents
in some excitement. "Dot Indian he gay no bring Annette indoors for de
night. How she sleep outdoors--like dog--like Bigger--like tramp? Yah
it is bad, ain't it?" and poor old Hendrik looked sadly upset and
mystified.

"Hendrik, do you suppose God turns out worse air in the night than in
the day?"

"Ach, dunno."

"Well, you see Quonab knows what he's doing."

"Yah."

"Well, let him do it. He or I'll sleep alongside the child she'll be
all right," and Rolf thought of those horrible brown crawlers under the
bedding indoors.

Rolf had much confidence in the Indian as a doctor, but he had more in
his own mother. He was determined to give Annette the quinine, yet he
hesitated to interfere. At length, he said: "It is cool enough now; I
will put these thin curtains round her bed."

"Ugh, good!" but the red man sat there while it was being done.

"You need not stay now; I'll watch her, Quonab."

"Soon, give more medicine," was the reply that Rolf did not want. So he
changed his ruse. "I wish you'd take that partridge and make soup of it.
I've had my hands in poison ivy, so I dare not touch it."

"Ach, dot shall I do. Dot kin myself do," and the fat mother, laying the
recent baby in its cradle, made cumbrous haste to cook the bird.

"Foiled again," was Rolf's thought, but his Yankee wit was with him. He
laid one hand on the bowl of snake-root tea. It was lukewarm. "Do you
give it hot or cold, Quonab?"

"Hot."

"I'll take it in and heat it." He carried it off, thinking, "If Quonab
won't let me give the bark extract, I'll make him give it." In the gloom
of the kitchen he had no difficulty in adding to the tea, quite unseen,
a quarter of the extract; when heated, he brought it again, and the
Indian himself gave the dose.

As bedtime drew near, and she heard the red man say he would sleep
there, the little one said feebly, "Mother, mother," then whispered in
her mother's ear, "I want Rolf."

Rolf spread hi