The dinner hour arriving, I dismissed old Tubba, and arranging my toilet, walked up to the dwelling-house, near half a mile distant, where I was detained several hours by the presence of company, to whom I was forced to do the honours, the doctor not having returned.
At length I got released, and returned to the office, resolving to suspend my studies until I could have a talk with my preceptor; for, even on my ignorant mind, the shadow of a doubt was falling as to whether there might not be some mistake in my understanding of his language.
Entering the office, my eyes involuntarily sought the Solution of Arsenic. Father of purges and pukes, it was gone! "Tubba, you're a gone case. I ought to have hidden it. I might have known he would steal it after smelling the whiskey; poor fellow! it's no use to try and find him, he's struck a straight line for the swamp; poor fellow! it's all my fault." Thus upbraiding myself for my carelessness, I walked back into my bedroom. And my astonishment may be imagined, when I discovered the filthy Indian tucked in nicely between my clean sheets.
To all appearances he was in a desperate condition, the fatal bottle lying hugged closely in his embrace, nearly empty. He must be suffering awfully, thought I, when humanity had triumphed over the indignation I felt at the liberties he had taken, but Indian-like, he bears it without a groan. Well has his race been called "the stoics of the wood, the men without a tear." But I must not let him die without an effort to save him. I don't know what to do myself, so I'll call in Dr. B., and away I posted; but Dr. B. was absent; so was Dr. L.; and in fact every physician of the town. Each office, however, contained one or more students; and as half a loaf is better than no bread, I speedily informed them of the condition of affairs, and quickly, like a flock of young vultures, we were thronging around the poisoned Indian, to what we would soon have rendered the harvest of death.
"Stomach pump eo instanti!" said one; "Sulphas Zinci cum Decoction Tabacum!" said another; "Venesection!" suggested a third. "Puke of Lobelia!" suggested a young disciple of Thompson, who self-invited had joined the conclave, "Lobelia. Number six, pepper tea, yaller powders, I say!"