ed up to the fort, where he was laid on a bed, and restoratives
actively applied for his recovery.

CHAPTER FIVE.

PETER MACTAVISH BECOMES AN AMATEUR DOCTOR; CHARLEY PROMULGATES HIS VIEWS
OF THINGS IN GENERAL TO KATE; AND KATE WAXES SAGACIOUS.

Shortly after the catastrophe just related, Charley opened his eyes to
consciousness, and aroused himself out of a prolonged fainting fit,
under the combined influence of a strong constitution and the medical
treatment of his friends.

Medical treatment in the wilds of North America, by the way, is very
original in its character, and is founded on principles so vague that no
one has ever keen found capable of stating them clearly. Owing to the
stubborn fact that there are no doctors in the country, men have been
thrown upon their own resources, and as a natural consequence _every_
man is a doctor. True, there _are_ two, it may be three, real doctors
in the Hudson's Bay Company's employment; but as one of these is
resident on the shores of Hudson's Bay, another in Oregon, and a third
in Red River Settlement, they are not considered available for every
case of emergency that may chance to occur in the hundreds of little
outposts, scattered far and wide over the whole continent of North
America, with miles and miles of primeval wilderness between each. We
do not think, therefore, that when we say there are no doctors in the
country, we use a culpable amount of exaggeration.

If a man gets ill, he goes on till he gets better; and if he doesn't get
better, he dies. To avert such an undesirable consummation, desperate
and random efforts are made in an amateur way. The old proverb that
"extremes meet" is verified. And in a land where no doctors are to be
had for love or money, doctors meet you at every turn, ready to practise
on everything, with anything, and all for nothing, on the shortest
possible notice. As may be supposed, the practice is novel, and not
unfrequently extremely wild. Tooth-drawing is considered child's play--
mere blacksmith's work; bleeding is a general remedy for everything,
when all else fails; castor oil, Epsom salts, and emetics are the three
keynotes, the foundations, and the copestones of the system.

In Red River there is only one _genuine_ doctor; and as the settlement
is fully sixty miles long, he has enough to do, and is not always to be
found when wanted, so that Charley had to rest content with amateur
treatment in the meantime. Peter