Pruitt said he was not as hungry, & he did not touch the goose meat.
The rest of us ate, but I admit my stomach turned when I thought of the feathers at the slave’s wrist. If you believe a woman can take such form, how can you ever again eat goose flesh without some distress?
This afternoon we met a man who Ceeth Hwya described as the greatest chief of the Wolverine Valley. They say as a young man he led one of the massacres of the Russians. Now he is old & blind, lives alone except for a woman who cares for him. He wept often during our visit. Nat’aaggi says he was ashamed not to have more to offer in hospitality.
He is one of the oldest men I have ever seen. I suspect he does not have much longer on this earth. Tillman shared with him a small bit of Boyd’s tobacco.
June 10
The mosquitoes are incessant. Our first encounters this spring were not so troublesome?—?the insects large, slow & easy to swat. The Indians, however, warned us of what was to come. With summer, new varieties appear. Small, aggressive, & numerous enough to be a menace. Pruitt claims to have counted 65 mosquitoes on Tillman’s back at one time. This annoyed the sergeant.
?—?You ought to do less counting & more killing, he said.
We stay to the riverbed, where the sand & wind drive back the insects. When we must cross into wooded areas, however, we are besieged. I chose a poor route today so that we found ourselves in the middle of wet land. A dark cloud of mosquitoes surrounded us, attacked any exposed skin & swarmed our eyes, mouths & ears. . All the while a sandpiper of some type swept down on us & screeched without stop. It was a maddening, unpleasant scene, one that I thought would break Pruitt entirely. At night we sleep with our heads pulled all the way into our sleeping bags. Nat’aaggi burns a smudge fire of green leaves. Boyo snaps at the air.
June 11
Mid-day. Sunny, much warmer than one would ever expect this far north. We rest against driftwood logs on a sandy stretch of riverbed. No mosquitoes in this heat, so we will sleep for a few hours in blessed peace. We need not worry about wasting daylight. This far north & into summer, we travel through the night if we choose, as true darkness never comes.
It is remarkable, the transformation of this land. We arrived to snow & ice & gray. When I call this to mind, the landscape before us seems impossible. It has become a verdant, lush place, nearly jungle-like. Swaths of alder roll down off the mountains. The lowlands are thick with cottonwood, birch, & willow, all in foliage. When we enter the forest, we walk through stinging nettles, wild raspberry bushes. There are, too, giant leaves with stalks as tall as a man & barbed with spines that cause welts to the skin. The trapper calls them devil’s club. The name is well earned.
We observed a small group of caribou at sky-line this evening, some half mile away. The animals behaved unpredictably, prancing, running in all directions as if they bolted from invisible enemies.
?—?Mosquitoes, Tillman explained. —?Nattie says the poor beasts are trying to outrun them.
June 12
No rabbits in Nat’aaggi’s snares today. Ate the last of the salmon two days ago, though it was well turned to mush in our packs. Flour paste for breakfast. Anxious to find the village on the lake.
X. Scurvy (Scorbutus) Definition. —?A constitutional disease characterized by great debility, with anaemia, a spongy condition of the gums, and a tendency to haemorrhages.
Symptoms. —?The disease is insidious in its onset. Early symptoms are loss in weight, progressively developing weakness, and pallor. Very soon the gums are noticed to be swollen and spongy, to bleed easily, and in extreme cases to present a fungous appearance. The teeth may become loose and even fall out. The tongue is swollen, but may be red and not much furred. The skin becomes dry and rough, and ecchymoses soon appear, first on the legs and then on the arms and trunk.
Palpitation of the heart and feebleness and irregularity of the impulse are prominent symptoms. The appetite is impaired, and owing to the soreness of the gums the patient is unable to chew the food.
There are mental depression, indifference, in some cases headache, and in the latter stages delirium.
Prognosis. —?The outlook is good, unless the disease is far advanced and the conditions persist which lead to its development.
?—?From Principles and Practice of Medicine,
William Osler, M.D., New York, 1893
Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester
June 13, 1885
Kulgadzi Lake
A formidable body of water indeed.