On Buffalo River I saw a boatman or water-spider seize, and devour a mosquito that fell within reach; which is encouraging, because, as a rule, the smaller the foe, the deadlier, and the only creature that really affects the whole mosquito nation is apparently a small red parasite that became more and more numerous as the season wore on. It appeared in red lumps on the bill and various parts of the stinger's body, and the victim became very sluggish. Specimens sent to Dr. L. 0. Howard, the authority on mosquitoes, elicited the information that it was a fungus, probably new to science. But evidently it is deadly to the Culex. More power to it, and the cause it represents; we cannot pray too much for its increase. Now to sum up: after considering the vastness of the region affected--three-quarters of the globe--and the number of diseases these insects communicate, one is inclined to say that it might be a greater boon to mankind to extirpate the mosquito than to stamp out tuberculosis. The latter means death to a considerable proportion of our race, the former means hopeless suffering to all mankind; one takes off each year its toll of the weaklings the other spares none, and in the far north at least has made a hell on earth of the land that for six months of each year might be a human Paradise. CHAPTER X A BAD CASE My unsought fame as a medicine man continued to grow. One morning I heard a white voice outside asking, "Is the doctor in?" Billy replied: "Mr. Seton is inside." On going forth I met a young American who thus introduced himself: "My name is Y------, from Michigan. I was a student at Ann Arbor when you lectured there in 1903. 1 don't suppose you remember me; I was one of the reception committee; but I'm mighty glad to meet you out here." After cordial greetings he held up his arm to explain the call and said: "I'm in a pretty bad way." "Let's see." He unwound the bandage and showed a hand and arm swollen out of all shape, twice the natural size, and of a singular dropsical pallor. "Have you any pain?" "I can't sleep from the torture of it." "Where does it hurt now?" "In the hand." "How did you get it?" "It seemed to come on after a hard crossing of Lake Athabaska. We had to row all night." I asked one or two more questions, really to hide my puzzlement. "What in the world is it?" I said to myself; "all so fat and puffy." I cudgelled my brain for a clue. As I examined the hand in silence to play for time and conceal my ignorance, he went on: "What I'm afraid of is blood-poisoning. I couldn't get out to a doctor before a month, and by that time I'll be one-armed or dead. I know which I'd prefer." Knowing, at all events, that nothing but evil could come of fear, I said: "Now see here. You can put that clean out of your mind. You never saw blood-poisoning that colour, did you?" "That's so," and he seemed intensely relieved. While I was thus keeping up an air of omniscience by saying nothing, Major Jarvis came up.