s pleasure trip was disagreeably interrupted by brain
fever, which attacked him when about halfway to Bent's Fort. He jolted
along through the rest of the journey in a baggage wagon. When they came
to the fort he was taken out and left there, together with the rest of
the sick. Bent's Fort does not supply the best accommodations for an
invalid. Tete Rouge's sick chamber was a little mud room, where he and a
companion attacked by the same disease were laid together, with nothing
but a buffalo robe between them and the ground. The assistant surgeon's
deputy visited them once a day and brought them each a huge dose of
calomel, the only medicine, according to his surviving victim, which he
was acquainted with.

Tete Rouge woke one morning, and turning to his companion, saw his eyes
fixed upon the beams above with the glassy stare of a dead man. At this
the unfortunate volunteer lost his senses outright. In spite of the
doctor, however, he eventually recovered; though between the brain fever
and the calomel, his mind, originally none of the strongest, was so much
shaken that it had not quite recovered its balance when we came to the
fort. In spite of the poor fellow's tragic story, there was something
so ludicrous in his appearance, and the whimsical contrast between his
military dress and his most unmilitary demeanor, that we could not help
smiling at them. We asked him if he had a gun. He said they had taken
it from him during his illness, and he had not seen it since; "but
perhaps," he observed, looking at me with a beseeching air, "you will
lend me one of your big pistols if we should meet with any Indians." I
next inquired if he had a horse; he declared he had a magnificent one,
and at Shaw's request a Mexican led him in for inspection. He exhibited
the outline of a good horse, but his eyes were sunk in the sockets, and
every one of his ribs could be counted. There were certain marks too
about his shoulders, which could be accounted for by the circumstance,
that during Tete Rouge's illness, his companions had seized upon the
insulted charger, and harnessed him to a cannon along with the draft
horses. To Tete Rouge's astonishment we recommended him by all means to
exchange the horse, if he could, for a mule. Fortunately the people at
the fort were so anxious to get rid of him that they were willing to
make some sacrifice to effect the object, and he succeeded in getting a
tolerable mule in exchange for the broken-down ste