Jennie began to cry. “O Marian, don’t! don’t!” she sobbed.
Marian sat up and pushed back some loose strands of hair that straggled over her eyes.
“Jennie,” she said, “we have got to hurt him. We can’t help it. We have got to get him back to the wickiup, where I can fix it—as well as I can. If we don’t get it right, he will be a cripple all his life. The pain won’t kill him; just the pain won’t, dearie. He may faint, but it won’t be any worse. Don’t make it worse by your crying.”
So Jennie controlled herself as well as she could, and she and Esther, steeling their hearts, held the little arm and head and shoulder down, while Marian straightened the leg a little and arranged it so it would be held fairly steady as they carried him back. Then she turned him over and examined the arm. She could not see that it was hurt, but she knew it must be. As gently as she could, she lifted him on to the stretcher and gave him a big drink of water. Then they started back. Davie and Esther cried all the way.
At the wickiup they laid him as gently as they could on the floor, but he screamed with the pain nevertheless. Marian set all three of the others to bringing up water, and she put some on in the little kettle over the fire.
She washed off the blood and dirt and tore her bathing-suit into bandages. Fortunately, it was clean, having been washed and boiled in fresh water, as it chanced, since she had used it, and she put a clean bandage around the head in the place of the rather dirty rag that Delbert had tied it with. Then she gathered all the little pieces of board they had, and while the others brought the water, she worked at splints.
When she had got these ready, she straightened her patient out on the floor on his back, and undid the first hasty bandaging and tried to straighten his leg till it would look and feel just like the other one. Jennie and Esther were too much wrought up by Davie’s suffering to be of much service, but Delbert set his white lips together and held the screaming child firmly. At last they thought it seemed to be right and bandaged it up.
“Marian,” said Delbert, “his shoulder cracked awful funny just now.”
After a little examination she said, “I guess it must have been twisted out of place a little and slipped back in. You see, he moves it now, and it certainly feels just like the other one, at any rate.”
She felt him all over, but could find nothing more that seemed like broken bones, for which she was devoutly thankful.