Young Nick Adams grows up quickly over the course of his visit to the eponymous Indian camp. Accompanying his father and his uncle, both of which are doctors, he gets to witness at first hand, for the first time in his short life, the unpleasant realities of life and death.

First of all, he witnesses his father perform a crude cesarean section on an Indian woman using a sterilized pocketknife. The operation is extremely difficult, and it causes the woman considerable pain. Yet Nick remains by his father's side throughout the operation, standing by with a basin of water for what seems like an eternity. For the first time, Nick has gained an understanding of the difficulties of bringing life into the world.

Not long after, he gains a glimpse into human existence at the other end of the scale. Disturbed by the piercing screams of his pregnant wife, the Indian woman's husband goes out of his mind and kills himself by cutting his throat. Unlike the cesarean section, this particular experience is one that Nick's father wants to spare his son. After all, it's not a pretty sight to see the dead man lying there in a pool of blood.

But it's too late; Nick's already seen it. And now that he has seen it, he's full of curiosity about an experience that most children of his age would never see and should never get to see. On the way home, he asks his father all kinds of questions about life and death. Even more significantly, Nick's experiences at the Indian camp have made him feel like he's somehow immortal. This is undoubtedly a consequence of his father's detached attitude toward his patients, an attitude which now appears to have been passed on to his son.