"Why no let Peter watch? No doctor, but keep good fire and let you sleep."
"Well, Peter," said La Salle, "I shall be glad to rest; but you must be careful of the wood, and put in as little as will keep up a blaze, for we have not a great deal, and that not of a very good kind."
"Me know no woods here, and Peter will not waste any, you better b'lieve."
Laying his hand on George's head, he felt a slight moisture; and covering him still more closely, he lay down with a hopeful heart, and, wearied in mind and body, slept until nearly nine the next morning.
Regnar was broiling the dismembered body of a goose at the rude grate, and at that moment was arranging on a slender spit alternate portions of the heart, liver, and fat of the bird. After being seasoned with salt, this was rapidly rotated in front of the fire by Peter, who watched with much interest the preparation of three similar sticks.
La Salle sprang to his feet, and first hastened to Waring, who professed himself cured, and wanted to get up.
"No, George; you must lie abed to-day, and accept a cup of _very_ weak coffee and some bread. I shall let you eat nothing. You see," he continued, as the boy broke into a fit of coughing, "that the cold has not left you yet, and I have no doubt you feel some pain in your chest now."
"Yes, it has gone into my lungs a little, but will wear off soon, I guess. It always does at home."
"Well, we can't risk anything here; so I'll get your coffee, and after breakfast, if Peter will get me a little pitch off the branches, I'll make something for your cough."
The birds were well cooked and quite appetizing; and as he rose Peter handed La Salle a small handful of Canada balsam, which in the shape of small tears clung to many of the larger branches on the floor.
But the eye of the speaker caught a look directed by Regnar at the roof of the hut, from whence exuded a few drops of a blacker resin.
"Yes, I see Stockholm tar; that will help the cure much."
Placing the two in an iron spoon, rudely made from a fragment of the decoys, they were gently melted, and a small quantity of sugar added, with enough powdered biscuit to enable the mass to be rolled into little balls.
"You must chew these and swallow the tar-water thus formed, and finally the resins themselves, and you will find your cough much loosened by to-morrow."