Deftly, and with a feather-like touch, Doctor Joe with a delicate instrument made a triangular incision upon the membrane which covered the white of one of Jamie’s eyes, and turning the membrane back removed a minute button-shaped piece from the exposed eyeball. Immediately this was done a fluid began to drain through the slight opening, and Doctor Joe spread the membrane back into place.
The other eye was treated in similar manner, and the eyes quickly bandaged by Doctor Joe. And then the unconscious Jamie was gently lifted into Thomas’s bunk, which Margaret had prepared for him.
Not a word had been spoken during all this time save by Doctor Joe, as he issued sharp, crisp directions to Thomas or Margaret. And now, when he looked up, there was a new alert enthusiasm in his face—a something they had never seen there before.
“We never can tell the result,” said he, “until the bandage is removed, but I never operated more skilfully. Sometimes it doesn’t cure, but it is the only thing to be done in such cases, and we’ll hope we have succeeded.”
They were still standing by the side of Jamie’s bed when the door opened, and David, turning to see who was entering, cried, excitedly:
“Jake! ’Tis Jake! Here’s Jake!”
And sure enough it was Indian Jake, with the bags of furs, and when he beheld David and Andy he stood staring at them quite as though they were not boys at all, but ghosts.
Thomas and all greeted Indian Jake as cordially as they could have done had there never been a suspicion of his honesty, and he was contrite and sorry enough that his delay had caused them pain and worry.
“When I thought the lads had perished,” said he, “I knew that I’d have t’ get out of th’ country on snowshoes, so I could haul my load on a flatsled, for I never could have managed the boat over the portage without help, and I started right off. The break-up caught me at the mouth of th’ Nascaupee, where I stopped t’ hunt bear. Then I waited till th’ Injuns came along with canoes yesterday, and gave me a passage down.”
Then he handed David and Andy the furs over the loss of which they had spent so many unhappy days, and opening his own bag of furs he drew forth the better of the two silver foxes, and shaking the pelt well, as he had done in the tilt, held it up for admiration, and when all had marveled at its beauty strode over to the bed of the unconscious Jamie, and laid it upon the blanket.