I cast about me in search of red cedar that I might make a bow. I searched the willow thicket for arrow shafts, and prowled among little flints and pointed stones on the shores of our stream, seeking arrow points. It finally appeared to me that we might rest here for a time and be fairly safe to make a living in some way. Then, as I was obliged to admit, we would need to hurry on to the southward.
But again fate had its way with us, setting aside all plans. When I returned to our encampment, instead of seeing Ellen come out to meet me as I expected, I found her lying in the shade of the little tepee.
"You are hurt!" I cried. "What has happened?"
"My foot," said she, "I think it is broken!" She was unable to stand.
As she could, catching her breath, she told me how this accident had happened. Walking along the stony creek bank, she had slipped, and her moccasined foot, caught in the narrow crack between two rocks, had been held fast as she fell forward. It pained her now almost unbearably. Tears stood in her eyes.
So now it was my term to be surgeon. Tenderly as I might, I examined the foot, now badly swollen and rapidly becoming discolored. In spite of her protest—although I know it hurt me more than herself—I flexed the joints and found the ankle at least safe. Alas! a little grating in the smaller bones, just below the instep, told me of a fracture.
"Ellen," said I to her, "the foot is broken here—two bones, I think, are gone."
She sank back upon her robe with an exclamation as much of horror as pain.
"What shall we do!" she murmured. "I shall be crippled! I cannot walk—we shall perish!"
"No," I said to her, "we shall mend it. In time you will not know it has happened." Thus we gave courage to each other.