At noon, on the 14th of September, a very large Santa Fe caravan came up.  The plain was covered with the long files of their white-topped wagons, the close black carriages in which the traders travel and sleep, large droves of animals, and men on horseback and on foot.  They all stopped on the meadow near us.  Our diminutive cart and handful of men made but an insignificant figure by the side of their wide and bustling camp.  Tete Rouge went over to visit them, and soon came back with half a dozen biscuits in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other.  I inquired where he got them.  “Oh,” said Tete Rouge, “I know some of the traders.  Dr. Dobbs is there besides.”  I asked who Dr. Dobbs might be.  “One of our St. Louis doctors,” replied Tete Rouge.  For two days past I had been severely attacked by the same disorder which had so greatly reduced my strength when at the mountains; at this time I was suffering not a little from the sudden pain and weakness which it occasioned.  Tete Rouge, in answer to my inquiries, declared that Dr. Dobbs was a physician of the first standing.  Without at all believing him, I resolved to consult this eminent practitioner.  Walking over to the camp, I found him lying sound asleep under one of the wagons.  He offered in his own person but an indifferent specimen of his skill, for it was five months since I had seen so cadaverous a face.

His hat had fallen off, and his yellow hair was all in disorder; one of his arms supplied the place of a pillow; his pantaloons were wrinkled halfway up to his knees, and he was covered with little bits of grass and straw, upon which he had rolled in his uneasy slumber.  A Mexican stood near, and I made him a sign that he should touch the doctor.  Up sprang the learned Dobbs, and, sitting upright, rubbed his eyes and looked about him in great bewilderment.  I regretted the necessity of disturbing him, and said I had come to ask professional advice.  “Your system, sir, is in a disordered state,” said he solemnly, after a short examination.

I inquired what might be the particular species of disorder.

“Evidently a morbid action of the liver,” replied the medical man; “I will give you a prescription.”

Repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons, he scrambled in; for a moment I could see nothing of him but his boots.  At length he produced a box which he had extracted from some dark recess within, and opening it, he presented me with a folded paper of some size.  “What is it?” said I.  “Calomel,” said the doctor.

Under the circumstances I would have taken almost anything.  There was not enough to do me much harm, and it might possibly do good; so at camp that night I took the poison instead of supper.

That camp is worthy of notice.  The traders warned us not to follow the main trail along the river, “unless,” as one of them observed, “you want to have your throats cut!” The river at this place makes a bend; and a smaller trail, known as the Ridge-path, leads directly across the prairie from point to point, a distance of sixty or seventy miles.