Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1885-08-27
AN INCIDENT OF CAMP LIFE.
How Charcoal Brown" was Treated fol
Fever

James Milton Sherrod said he had n peculiar
experience once while he was I'm camp on the
Poudre in Colorado.
''We went over from Larmy," said he Sin
July, eight years ago-four of us. There was
me and Charcoal Brown and old Joe and Young
Joe Connoy. We had just got comfortable
down on the Lower Fork, out of the reach of
everybody and 60 miles from a doctor, when
Charcoal Brown got sick Well, we had a big
time of II. You can imagine yourself some
thing about IT, Long In the night Brown be-
gan to groan and whoop and boiler, and
made a diagnosis of him. He didn't have
much sand anyhow. He was trying to get a
pension from the government on the
grounds OF desertion and failure TO pro-
vide, or some such blame thing or other. so
didn't feel much sympathy for him. But
when / lit the yas and examined him found
that he had large fever on hand, and there
we was without n duggon thing in the house
but jug Of emigraht whisky and a paper of
condition powders for the mule. was good
deal ratified at first to know what the dickens
TO do fur him. The whisky wouldn't do him
any good, and, besides, II he was goin' TO have
a long spell Of sickness we needed II for the
watchers.
N'sWall, It was rough I'd think OF a thous-
and things that was good fur fevers and then
I'd remember that we hadn't got 'em. Finally
old Joe says to me, James, why don't We soak
his feeti says he. Soak nuthin',' says i;
What would We soak 'em in.' We had long
1t of course, but it was too SMALLER to do any
good, anyhow; so we abandoned that synopsis
right off. First / thought I'd try the condi-
tion powders In him, but i hated TO go into a
case and prescribe so reckless. Finally
thought about a case of rheumatic that / had
up in Bitter Creek years ago. and how the boys
filled their socks full Of hot ashes and put 'em
all over me till IL started the presbyterian all
over me and / got over 1t. SO we begun to
skirmish around the tent for socks, and hope
4 ms NO tpptnfallV exIp ~ fbara "a A hlaTnp
sock in the whole syndicate. Ez fur me, |
never wore 'em, but did think young Joe
would be fixed. He wasn't though. Said he
didn't want to be considered proud and high
strung, so he left his socks at home.
"Then we begun to look around and finally
decided that Brown would die pretty soon II
we didn't break up the fever so we concluded
TO take all the ashes under the camp fire, I'LL up
his cloze, which was loose, tie his sleeves at
the wrists and his pants at the ankles, give
him dash of condition powders and little
whisky TO take the taste out OF his mouth and
then see what ejosted nature would do.
$50 we stood Brown up agin tree and
poured hot ashes down his back till he begun
TO fit his cloZe pretty quick, and then we laid
him down In the tent and covered him up
with everything we had in our humble cot
Everything worked well till he begun TO per-
spirate, and then there was music and don't
you forget it. That kind of soaked the ashes,
don't you see, and made I've that would take
the peeling off telegraph pole.
Charcoal Brown jest simply rz up and ut
tered shrill whoop that Jared the geology OF
Colorado, and made my blood run cold. The
goose flesh rz on old Joe Connoy till you could
hang your hat on him anywhere. 1t was
awful.
Brown stood up on his feet, and threw
things, and cussed us till we felt ashamed of
ourselves. I've1 seen sickness a good deal in
my time, butt give 1t to you straight never
seen an invalid stand up in the loneliness Of
the night, far from home and friends with con-
centrated I've oozing out of the cracks in his
boots, aud reproach people the way Charcoal
Brown did us.
He got over it, of course, before Christmas,
but he was different man after that. Dos
ton Globe.