"Stop, or you will kill him! He must be brought up the embankment nearer the light, so as to give us a better chance to care for him. Raise his feet while I lift his shoulders. Oh! he is dreadfully lacerated. Gently, gently; there, lay him softly down. He is recovering! see, he breathes and turns his eyes."
"Sidney! Sidney! look up: are you much hurt?"
A heavy groan, and a relapse into unconsciousness, were all the answers he could give. But it was very expressive to the wanderers, who were without surgical aid, or even a bed to lay him on, or roof to shield him from the dews of night.
"A terrible business, this," said the trapper. "I fear the poor boy has received his death-wound. How is it with Jane? is she much injured?"
"I think not," said the chief; "the monster jumped too far to do much harm, save that which she received by the fall, and I gave him no chance to try a second time."
"We must take off his clothes, examine his wounds, and dress them," said the chief, "but first, we must make a bed to lay him on. My brother will watch him while I make it—it is but a few minutes' work." So saying, he took his tomahawk, cut and drove four stout posts into the ground, notched at the top, across which he placed two stout poles, which constituted a strong bedstead, though of a very primitive order; yet it was better than lying on the damp ground.
The bed was next to be manufactured, which was done by placing short poles across the structure. On this hemlock boughs were placed, and on these again a thick covering of dried leaves. Nor was this bed as hard as a person would imagine who had never reposed on one. The poles that upheld the upper structure were springy; the boughs were soft and yielding, while the leaves filled all the little crevices, and made it smooth and easy.
Lifting their patient upon his couch, they took off his upper garments, and then saw, to their dismay, the bones broken and protruding, the flesh mangled and torn, presenting a terrible spectacle. Besides, there were two other flesh wounds, but these alone would not have been dangerous.
"Nothing can be done until I collect some medicine leaves," said the chief, "which I am not sure of doing before daylight; but as the case is so urgent, I will try."
Taking a torch of pitch pine knots, he began searching round in the forest for the plant he desired, which he succeeded in finding very soon. Pressing some of the leaves so as to start the juice, he put them into a gourd, filled it with water, and after replacing the fractured bones as well as he could, with Howe's assistance, who had some practice that way during his roving life, proceeded to cleanse the wounds with the decoction: after which he held some of them in his hands until they were wilted, then laid them smoothly over the wound, confining the whole with the small fibre of leather wood—that never-failing substitute for thread or cord.