Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1894-01-29
RATA TOM.

How is Bill this morning, doctor?
Just left him-badly off-typhoi
fever-needs careful nursing NOR
than visits from me replied the pos
surgeon as he pushed back his gra.
campaign hat to wipe his dusty face
Now this was June and the land Ari
IONA, where summer is secure but ic'
impossible, and trained nurses taunt
ing vision of days, unassociated will
sage bush, accomplished in pleasan
Eastern hospitals.
On place like this, sensible mar
would die first and have his typhoid
fever afterward, growled the pos
surgeon, still sweltering from a TWEEN
ty mile ride across the dust mesa in
the face of the hot morning sun, where
he had gone, after surgeons call, or
a charity visit to Bill Meron, ranche1
in the Sierra Bonita foothills.
Once he had been a mild spoken
hearted. For, even while speaking,
he resolved to telegraph for ice and
to send man away miles across the
desert to the station after it. His
brusqueness was the shell a sensitive
nature had acquired in adjusting itself
to the wear and tear of garrison life
in a superheated climate. He won
dered at it himself, and often, when
he had spoken, felt startled as one
feels surprised to find the voice sud-
denly grown coarse with cold. Yet
he could have told accurately why the
skin on the hand thickens in time of
toll to keep the nerves quick within.
Doc, 1 don't know nuthin' bout
nursing, but if I can be any good, I'll
lend hand. My bronco's outside, an
I amt doing nuthin' particular.
The speaker was young cowboy,
clad in blue cottonade and high heel
ed boots, after the fashion of the coun-
try; he stood uneasily on one foot
near the door of the officers club in
the general storeroom where Mexi-
cans loiter and the ranchers buy their
bacon and tobacco. The surgeon
glanced at the boy and his eyes rested
on him moment without reply.
Rata Toms all right, doctor. He
cooked for Mccain on the round up
this spring, and is handy as woman
about place, added bystander.
Very well, Tom; tell the steward
sent you to the hospital for a lesson
in nursing typhoid fever. This even
ing go over to Sierra Bonita and take
charge of Bill Meron. I'll call in to-
after muster.
Amt there anything can send Bill?
asked the trader.
No; nothing now, Williams. May
want a little champagne later. He
was thinking Of ice. In crossing the
hot parade to the hospital, he won
dered if the Pullman car supply could
possibly last across the desert
In the dispensary he wrote tele-
gram, and told the steward to send it
to the operator and to tell Morrissy to
board and drive to the Needles. Then
he visited the SICK ward.
The next afternoon DR.. Davis rode
to Meron's ranch. The sun shone
hotly, and the sparse sage tufts plum
ed the mesa bowlder mounds in thin,
half clad gray. The Berenice hair
tossed in the heat waves and the
profile trembled, fretting on
a horizon of unbroken blue. There
were no clouds above and the glare
was intense, causing the eye to recoil
and strain itself in the effort to con-
tract and shut out all the light, while
the quick throbbing pulse Of the heat
laden air felt like fever breath on the
face.
In such strong light, as in great fogs,
the outside world escapes us and Wis
ion turns inward on the brain. The
doctor was now following that curious
chart = memory = where details are
recorded, then remembered or for
gotten. He no longer saw the stretch
Of trail Immediately before him; he
saw the whole trail-saw it where it
left the post and wandered across the
weary mesa; saw it span the ar
royo to enter the broken table land
and then wind higher among the |
ascending foothills. Then he strained |
his eyes against the shimmering heat |
and fancied the foot hills were sway
ing with the motion of billows: he