“Certainly I remember him! What’s he got to do with it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Cap said impatiently. “That horse was a gift from Theodore Lyman, and so were these other odds and ends.” He pointed to the pack on the pommel and avoided Nason’s eye.

“So Theodore Lyman made you a lot of presents, did he?” Nason said. “That’s something new for Theodore.” Cap stared up at the cloudless sky. “Looks a little like rain, don’t it?”

“What kind of presents did he give you?” Nason persisted.

Cap closed his eyes, held up a huge hand and ticked off items on his outspread fingers: “Ten gallons rum, twenty pounds powder, five fry-pans, ten pounds glass beads, one gross awls, three dozen pocket knives, one hundred fish hooks, thirty papers needles, ten gallons rum.”

“You counted the rum once before,” Nason said.

Cap sighed at Nason’s obtuseness. “Yes. He gave it to me twice—the second time because I kind of hinted. That makes twenty altogether.”

“Now look here,” Nason protested, “I want you to be careful! We’re liable to get into trouble if you let people give you things this way. What in God’s name did you want to take that horse for!”

“Stevie,” Cap said earnestly, “there’s nothin’ like a horse for trading purposes. You give me a horse, and I’ll guarantee to swap it for anything in reason. If there ain’t nothin’ to swap it for, I can eat it. Yes, and for every man that’s got into trouble over borrowing a horse, there’s a thousand good men have died for lack of one.”

There were times, during the next two weeks, when it seemed to me there might be something in what Cap said.

It was on the following morning that Nathaniel began to complain of having smallpox symptoms—a headache and a pain under his arm. I went looking for Doc Means and found him at the head of our little column, staggering along at Nason’s elbow—and that was one of the most singular of the many singular things about Doc Means. Old as he was, and half dead with fatigue as he always seemed to be, he somehow contrived to keep abreast of the leaders—and that, too, in spite of the bundles stored about his person.

Not only could he travel as fast as anyone, but seemingly he could travel longer. He was given to shambling off the path to hunt for moose tracks, for which he had almost a passion; and when he came stumbling and lurching back, his stumblings and lurchings carried him past the rest of us and up to the head of the column again.