The snow was beginning to soften in the warmth of the first spring suns by the time they arrived at Lac la Crosse.

Two days before they reached the post at Montreal Lake, Philip began to feel the first discomfort of a strange sickness, of which he said nothing.
But the sharp eyes of the doctor detected that something was wrong, and before they came to Montreal House he recognized the fever that had begun to burn in Philip's body.
"You've set too fast a pace," he told him.

"It's that--and the blow you got when DeBar threw you against the rock.

You'll have to lay up for a spell." In spite of his protestations, the doctor compelled him to go to bed when they arrived at the post.

He grew rapidly worse, and for five weeks the doctor and Falkner's wife nursed him through the fever.