One day I undertook, unaided, to drive home a small troop of cattle we
had purchased at a distance of a good many leagues, and was in the
saddle from morning till after dark in a continuous flooding rain and
violent wind. The wind was against me, and the beasts were incessantly
trying to turn and rush back to the place they had been taken from,
and the fight with wind and cattle went wearily on, the driving rain
gradually soaking through my woollen poncho, theft through my clothes
to my skin, and trickling down until my long boots were full and
slopping over at the knees. For the last half of that midwinter day my
feet and legs were devoid of feeling. The result of it was rheumatic
fever and years of bad health, with constant attacks of acute pain and
violent palpitation of the heart which would last for hours at a
stretch. From time to time I was sent or taken to consult a doctor in
the city, and in that way from first to last I was in the hands of
pretty well all the English doctors in the place, but they did me no
permanent good, nor did they say anything to give me a hope of
complete recovery. Eventually we were told that it was a practically
hopeless case, that I had "outgrown my strength," and had a
permanently bad heart and might drop down at any moment.
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