The Silver Canyon Part 7

"Hah!" said Joses, with a loud expiration of his breath, "them's like the pinchers a doctor chap once used to pull out a big aching tooth of mine, and he nearly pulled my head off as well."

"No; they were different to these, Joses," said the Doctor, quietly, as he took up a knife. "Feel faint, Bart?"

The lad blushed now. He had been turning pale.

"Well, I did feel a little sick, sir. It was the sight of that knife.

It has all gone now."

"That's right, my boy. Always try and master such feelings as these.

Now I must try and make him understand what I want to do. Give me that piece of stick, Bart, it will do to imitate the arrow."

Bart handed the piece of wood, which the Doctor shortened, and then, suiting the action to his words, he spoke to the chief:

"The arrow entered here," he said, pointing to a wound a little above the Indian's wrist, "and pierced right up through the muscles, to bury itself in the bone just here."

As he spoke, he pushed the stick up outside the arm along the course that the arrow had taken, and holding the end about where he considered the head of the arrow to be.

For answer the Indian gave two sharp nods, and said something in his own tongue which no one understood.

"Then," continued the Doctor, "you, or somebody else, in trying to extract the arrow, have broken it off, and it is here in the arm, at least six inches and the head."

As he spoke, he now broke the stick in two, throwing away part, and holding the remainder up against the Indian's wounded arm.

Again the chief nodded, and this time he smiled.

"Well, we understand one another so far," said the Doctor, "and he sees that I know what's the matter. Now then, am I to try and cure it? What would you like me to do?"

He pointed to the arm as he spoke, and then to himself, and the Indian took the Doctor's hand, directed it to the knife, and then, pointing to his arm, drew a line from the mouth of the wound right up to his elbow, making signs that the Doctor should make one great gash, and take the arrow out.

"All right, my friend, but that is not quite the right way," said the Doctor. "You trust me then to do my best for you?"

He took up one of the short-bladed knives as he spoke, and pointed to the arm.

The Indian smiled and nodded, his face the next moment becoming stern and fixed as if he were in terrible pain, and needed all his fort.i.tude to bear it.

"Going to cut it out, master?" said Joses, roughly.

"Yes."

"Let's give the poor beggar a comforter then," continued Joses. "If he scalps us afterwards along with his copper crew, why, he does, but let's show him white men are gentlemen."

"What are you going to do?" said the Doctor, wonderingly.

"Show you directly," growled Joses, who leisurely filled a short, home-made wooden pipe with tobacco, lit it at the Indian's fire, which was now crackling merrily, and returned to offer it to the chief, who took it with a short nod and a grunt, and began to smoke rapidly.

"That'll take a bit o' the edge off it," growled Joses. "Shall I hold his arm?"

"No; Bart, will do that," said the Doctor, rolling up his sleeves and placing water, bandages, and forceps ready. "Humph! he cannot bend his arm. Hold it like that, Bart--firmly, my lad, and don't flinch. I won't cut you."

"I'll be quite firm, sir," said Bart, quietly; and the Doctor raised his knife.

As he did so, he glanced at where nine Indians were seated round the fire, expecting to see that they would be interested in what was taking place; but, on the contrary, they were to a man fully occupied in roasting their dried meat and the portions of the antelope that they had cut up. The operation on the chief did not interest them in the least, or if it did, they were too stoical to show it.

The Doctor then glanced at his savage patient, and laying one hand upon the dreadfully swollen limb, he received a nod of encouragement, for there was no sign of quailing in the chief's eyes; but as the Doctor approached the point of the knife to a spot terribly discoloured, just below the elbow, the Indian made a sound full of remonstrance, and pointing to the wound above the wrist, signed to his attendant that he should slit the arm right up.

"No, no," said the Doctor, smiling. "I'm not going to make a terrible wound like that. Leave it to me."

He patted the chief on the shoulder as he spoke, and once more the Indian subsided into a state of stolidity, as if there were nothing the matter and he was not in the slightest pain.

Here I pause for a few moments as I say--Shall I describe what the Doctor did to save the Indian's life, or shall I hold my hand?

I think I will go on, for there should be nothing objectionable in a few words describing the work of a man connected with one of the n.o.blest professions under the sun.

There was no hesitation. With one quick, firm cut, the Doctor divided the flesh, piercing deep down, and as he cut his knife gave a sharp grate.

"Right on the arrowhead, Bart," he said quietly; and, withdrawing his knife, he thrust a pair of sharp forceps into the wound, and seemed as if he were going to drag out the arrow, but it was only to divide the shaft. This he seized with the other forceps, and drew out of the bleeding opening--a piece nearly five inches long, which came away easily enough.

Then, without a moment's hesitation, he sponged the cut for a while, and directly after, guiding them with the index finger of his left hand, he thrust the forceps once more into the wound.

There was a slight grating noise once again, a noise that Bart, as he manfully held the arm, seemed to feel go right through every nerve with a peculiar thrill. Then it was evident that the Doctor had fast hold of the arrowhead and he drew hard to take it out.

"I thought so," he said, "it is driven firmly into the bone."

As he spoke, he worked his forceps slightly to and fro, to loosen the arrowhead, and then, bearing firmly upon it, drew it out--an ugly, keen piece of nastily barbed iron, with a sc.r.a.p of the shaft and some deer sinew attached.

The Doctor examined it attentively to see that everything had come away, and uttered a sigh of satisfaction, while the only sign the Indian gave was to draw a long, deep breath.

"There, Mr Tomahawk," said the Doctor, smiling, as he held the arm over the bowl, and bathed the injury tenderly with fresh relays of water, till it nearly ceased bleeding; "that's better than making a cut all along your arm, and I'll be bound to say it feels easier already."

The Indian did not move or speak, but sat there smoking patiently till the deep cut was sewn up, padded with lint, and bound, and the wound above the wrist, where the arrow had entered, was also dressed and bound up carefully.

"There: now your arm will heal," said the Doctor, as he contrived a sling, and placed the injured limb at rest. "A man with such a fine healthy physique will not suffer much, I'll be bound. Hah, it's quite a treat to do some of the old work again."

The chief waited patiently until the Doctor had finished. Then rising, he stood for a few moments with knitted brows, perfectly motionless; and the frontier man, seeing what was the matter, seemed to be about to proffer his arm, but the Indian paid no heed to him, merely gazing straight before him till the feeling of faintness had pa.s.sed away, when he stooped and picked up the piece of arrow shaft and the head, walked with them to where his followers were sitting, and held them out for them to see. Then they were pa.s.sed round with a series of grunts, duly examined, and finally found a resting-place in a little beaver-skin bag at the chiefs girdle, along with his paints and one or two pieces of so-called "medicine" or charms.

Meanwhile the Doctor was busy putting away his instruments, feeling greatly relieved that the encounter with the Indians had been of so friendly a nature.

At the end of a few minutes the chief came back with the large buffalo robe that had been strapped to the back of his pony, spread it before the Doctor, placed on it his rifle, tomahawk, knife, and pouch, and signed to him that they were his as a present.

"He means that it is all he has to give you, sir," said Bart, who seemed to understand the chief's ways quicker than his guardian, and who eagerly set himself to interpret.

"Yes, that seems to be his meaning," replied the Doctor. "Well, let's see if we can't make him our friend."

Saying which the Doctor stooped down, picked up the knife and hatchet and placed them in the chiefs belt, his rifle in the hollow of his arm, and finally his buffalo robe over his shoulders, ending by giving him his hand smilingly, and saying the one word _friend_, _friend_, two or three times over.

The chief made no reply, but gravely stalked back to his followers, as if affronted at the refusal of his gift, and the day pa.s.sed with him lying down quietly smoking in the sage-brush, while the occupants of the Doctor's little camp went uneasily about their various tasks, ending by dividing the night into watches, lest their savage neighbours should take it into their heads to depart suddenly with the white man's horses--a favourite practice with Indians, and one that in this case would have been destructive of the expedition.