With bleeding feet he climbed the rocks to peer out into the distance, looking for his companions. No one can know what it feels like to be lost, except those who have had that dreadful experience. Lost in the wilderness, with no grub, no companion, nothing but what seemed a pitiless heaven above and a heartless nature all around, he shouted into an unheeding air, and only heard the sound of his own voice.
After hours of weary pain, he saw tracks which proved to be traces of his companions who had also left camp to hunt for grub. Following them in the hope of reaching camp, he was looking away over the horizon when he saw something dark. "Was it man or beast, dead or alive?" Soon he saw it move, and raise itself, and to his horror he saw it was a man, who turned out to be one of his own companions who had fallen exhausted and been left to die on the lonely trail.
What was he to do?
He could not leave him to perish; he could not stay long, for death was staring him in the face. To leave meant dark inhumanity; to help meant fearful suffering! But he was a hero, and took but a few moments to make his choice. He would stay with him and help him through, or perish in the effort.
The exhausted man said, "Leave me; we will both die if you stay." "No," said the brave hero, "I'll help you. Ah! I know how. My back is still left."
It took a lot of persuading, but at last, bending low, with all his wretchedness and hunger, with his bleeding feet and staggering body, he pulled the man upon his back and started to trudge over that awful road.
Miles he travelled until the very flesh peeled off his feet—but he never stopped until the tracks led him back to camp, where he laid tenderly down his burden and fell in exhaustion that nearly proved his end.
It was all told me in the plainest and most simple way, with no boasts—just the quiet eloquence of a story of a deed done, because there was nothing else to do.
As I heard it I fancied I could hear the Indians up the hill in the little mission chapel singing, and this is what they seemed to sing:
"Then scatter seeds of kindness
For the reaping by-and-by."