CHAPTER XVI 
HORACE TAKES A STAND 
THE rain began again as soon as we reached Mc- 
Knight Creek, and continued during all the time we 
worked that canyon. 
In the very first camp we made Horace fell ill. 
His trouble included chills, fever, general debility 
and a bad cold. Brown called it ‘‘mountain fever.’’ 
The patient had been complaining for some time 
of various pains and aches, usually after a hearty 
meal, and the sympathy we might have felt for him 
was minimised by the fact that we were all inclined 
to attribute the condition from which he suffered to 
overeating. 
None of us had delicate appetites—our work pre- 
cluded that—but we were well aware that if we ate 
all we wanted at every meal catastrophe would fol- 
low surely. Horace alone consistently stuffed him- 
self in spite of our warnings and the collapse of 
his system, we felt, was simply the inevitable result 
of this self indulgence. 
But the sick man in turn ascribed his illness to the 
altitude, the water, the temperature and the work, to 
every imaginable reason, in fact, but the obvious 
one. He suffered—and incidentally inflicted suf- 
fering on every one else—for several days. Then, 
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