They are not the crafty villains and assassins that my fancy had painted. They are kind, sympathetic friends. I realize that my right collar-bone and three ribs on the same side are broken, and when I remember where I am, the deplorableness and utter helplessness of my condition appal me.
EN ROUTE TO THE INDIAN VILLAGE.
The long hours until daylight drag slowly by, and at last, as the sun tips the distant mountain tops with golden light, we start on our perilous and painful journey to the Indian village and to the steamboat landing. The two red men have rigged a litter from poles and blankets, on which they carry me safely to their homes, and thence in a canoe to the landing below. How the long, tedious journey thence, by steamer and rail, to my own home is accomplished; how the weary days and nights of suffering and delirium which I endure en route were passed, are subjects too painful to dwell upon. I am finally assisted from the sleeper at my destination. My wife, whom the wire has informed of my misfortune and my coming, is there. She greets me with that fervent love, that intensity of pity and emotion that only a wife can feel. Her lips move, but her tongue is paralyzed. For the time she can not speak; the wells of her grief have gone dry; she can not weep; she can only act. I am taken to my home, and the suspense, the anxiety, having been lived out, the climax having been reached and passed I swoon away. Again the surgeon appears to be racking me with pain in an effort to set the broken ribs, and seems to be making an incision in my side for that purpose, when I awake.
The stars shone brightly above me, the frost on the leaves sparkled brightly in the fire-light. It took me several minutes to realize that I had been dreaming. I searched for the cause of the acute pain in my side, and found it to be the sharp point of a rock that my cedar boughs had not sufficiently covered and which was trying to get in between two of my ribs. I got up, removed it and slept better through the remainder of the night.
CHAPTER XV.
