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colonel, and the military character of his voice settled all of us further, giving a soldier’s dignity to the mishap.
    But Aaron Sweetland was bleeding hard.

CHAPTER 5
    Dr. Merrill stood at the fire, stirring the smoking coals with a ramrod.
    Aaron Sweetland had been heavily dosed with medicine from the blue bottle and he was no longer sobbing with pain. One ear had been shot away, and the rifle shot had drilled him right through his shoulder, just below the collarbone.
    Morning was not far away; the camp cook was carrying a kettle through the dark.
    Dr. Merrill turned from the fire, bleary-eyed from the smoke, with the tip of the rod glowing red.
    â€œIf you have the heart for it, William,” said the doctor, “I can use your help.”
    Stomach for it, he should have said. I knew all about cauterizing wounds—Aunt Jane and my sister and I had lived upstairs from a surgeon who treated bargemen and their knife wounds.
    I knew too well what was going to happen. But I have an optimistic outlook on things that often causes me to utter outright untruths. “I’m happy to help,” I heard this cheerful part of me sing out.
    Ben took a deep breath and shook his head.
    Dr. Merrill was only a few years older than us, but with his wooden box of drugs and clean-shaven countenance he was like another sort of man altogether. Furthermore, he reminded both of us of home, where kind-voiced men and women exchanged pleasantries. I treasured the memory of Philadephia’s Walnut Street, where whale-oil lamps cast a silver glow over Elizabeth, the reverend’s daughter, as she read to me from Macbeth .
    Ben and I had been happy to help Dr. Merrill at small tasks on board the ship, holding a pan while he bled a sailor, repacking his books when a storm swell sent them all over the deck. But cauterizing wounds was one of the most painful procedures medicine required. A hot iron was understood to seal the wound and encourage healing, but by all accounts it was painful beyond belief.
    Now Dr. Merrill was thrusting the ramrod back into the coals one last time and asking Colonel Legrand, “Would you have some brandy for all of us just before we begin?”
    â€œAll we have is the local rum, Dr. Merrill,” said the colonel sympathetically. “I haven’t seen brandy since Christmas.”
    I tilted the heavy bottle, and found that the liquor tasted of molasses, hot peppers, and poison. I could barely swallow. I passed the bottle on to Ben. He took a long drink and coughed, just like me.
    Dr. Merrill took a drink from the bottle, too, and swallowed it down like water. Then he withdrew the glowing tip of the ramrod from the fire.
    He strode purposefully over to the place where Mr. Sweetland had been carried by his friends, men from his hometown who had formed the Tioga County Mining and Assaying Company. Many small groups had set up such companies, signing bylaws and solemn promises to help each other. If nothing else, it provided support for times like this, and, if the worst happened, companions who would arrange decent burial.
    â€œHold the lamp high, Ben,” said Dr. Merrill, his voice firm. “Willie, you hold Mr. Sweetland down.”
    Mr. Sweetland was agape, blessedly half-stunned by the opium-and-spirits he had been swallowing.
    The glowing iron approached the wound in his shoulder.
    I couldn’t help thinking that this was the sort of injury I would give Ezra Nevin—when I found him. If he so much as gave me the least argument about coming home with me.
    If he gave me the least quibble about the harm and embarrassment he’d created for Elizabeth.

CHAPTER 6
    Wherever he went, everyone liked Ezra.
    I liked him, too—despite my loyalty to Elizabeth. Anyone would. He had a smile nearly as infectious as Ben’s, and a manly, rough elegance that made dogs fawn and grown men clap him on the back.
    The younger son of the family that published the Philadelphia North American ,