Doc took back the book and eyed the picture with professorial calm. “That’s mullein. That herb’s as valuable as it is common. It’s good for pretty near everything there is.”

He read gravely from the Herbal, pausing from time to time to let Verrieul translate. “The common white mullein is under the dominion of Saturn. A small quantity of the root, given in wine, is good for fluxes of the belly. The decoction thereof drank, is profitable for cramps and convulsions, and for an old cough. If gargled, it easeth the pains of toothache. An oil made by infusing the flowers is excellent for the piles. The decoction of the root in red wine wherein red hot steel has been often quenched, doth stay the bloody flux: doth also open obstructions of the bladder when one cannot make water. Three ounces of the distilled water of the flowers drank morning and evening for some days together, bringeth relief from the gout. The decoction of the root, and so likewise of the leaves, is of great effect to dissolve tumors or inflammation of the throat. The seed and leaves boiled in wine, and applied, speedily draw forth thorns or splinters gotten into the flesh. The juice of the leaves and flowers, laid upon rough warts, doth easily take them away, but doeth no good to smooth warts. The powder of the dried leaves is an especial remedy for those troubled with bellyache.”

Doc closed the book with a slap. “Quite a herb, ain’t it?”

Verrieul, flinging his arms about, translated to the open-mouthed red men.

“Does it do all those things?” I asked him.

“I guess mebbe it would,” he said, “if you thought it would. There ain’t nothing that does you much good unless you think it does.”

Delighted as the Indians were over Doc’s oration on the mullein, they were more deeply impressed by magic powers he then displayed. They asked again to see the book, and when they had it in their hands, they hunted patiently for the picture of the mullein, only to have it elude them.

“What they looking for?” Doc asked Verrieul. “What is it those red minks want to find?”

When Verrieul told him, Doc reached over Sponge-belly’s shoulder and turned the pages to the letter M. There, on page 220, was the mullein.

The Indians, astounded, howped and yowped; and Sponge-belly went to counting the sheets between the front of the book and the mullein’s picture.

“What’s he doing, counting those pages?” Doc wanted to know.

Verrieul, too, was at a loss; but on asking, he discovered that Sponge-belly wished to be able, in the future, to locate the mullein with no loss of time, and could only do so by counting, one by one, the sheets that preceded it.