t what he was looking for, but having an
inchoate idea that a febrifuge ought to be something bitter.

The tasting process gave him a variety of new experiences. The leaves of
one weed burned his mouth like fire, and he had to stop and plunge his
face into the brook to extinguish the conflagration. Those of another
made him deathly sick. Finally he came to a tall plant with bluish-white
flowers which looked familiar, in a way, though he could not recall its
name. A chewed leaf convinced him at once that he need seek no farther.
There was the bitterness of hopeless sorrow in its horrible acridity; it
clung to him tenaciously while he was gathering an armful of the plant,
and went with him on his return to the camp--this, in spite of the fact
that he stopped frequently to wash his mouth with brook water.

"What have you there?" was Lucetta's query when he came in with his
burden.

"I don't know, but I am hoping you can tell me," he said, giving her a
spray of the weed to look at. "Have you ever seen it before?"

"Hundreds of times," she returned. "It is a common weed in Ohio. But I
haven't the slightest idea what it is."

Prime groaned. "More of the town-bred education," he deprecated. "But
never mind; they can't call us nature-fakirs, whatever other foolish
name we may be earning for ourselves."

"What are you going to do with it?" she asked.

"Wait and you'll see."

With the bread-mixing tin for a stew-pan Prime made a rich decoction of
the leaves. When the mess began to simmer and steam the poor patient
raised herself on one elbow to look at it.

"You are not going to make me drink all that, are you, Donald?" she
protested weakly.

"Oh, no; not all of it. Wait until it's properly cooked and I'll show
you what I am going to do with it."

The cooking took some time, but the culinary effort offered a mild
diversion and was at least a change from the deadly routine of doing
nothing. The steam rising from the stewing leaves gave off a peculiarly
afflicting odor, and Lucetta sniffed it apprehensively.

"It smells very horrible," she ventured. "Is it going to taste as bad as
it smells?"

"That, my dear girl, is on the knees of the gods," he returned
oracularly.

"How did you find it?" she wanted to know.

"By the simple process of cut and try. And I can assure you that,
however bad it may smell or taste, it hasn't anything on some of the
leaves I've been chewing this morning."

When the dose was sufficien