"O Sam, then you'll bleed to death," said Tom.
"No I won't. Do as I tell you."
"Let me cut it, then. It wont hurt you so much."
"No, no, no," cried Sam, staying his hand. "Don't cut it. Tear it, I tell you, and be quick."
Tom tore it, and the blood stopped almost immediately. Sam then bound the foot up with strips of cloth torn from his clothing, and as he did so said:
"Now I'll tell you both all about this so that you'll know what to do another time. If you know only what to do, you may forget; but if you know why, you'll remember. The blood comes out from the heart to all parts of the body in arteries, and when it leaves the heart it is bright red, because it is clean and pure. Your heart is a sort of force-pump, and every time it beats it forces the blood all over you. The arteries fork and branch out in every direction, until they terminate in millions of little veins smaller than the finest hairs, and these running together make bigger veins, through which the blood is carried to the lungs. In the veins it flows steadily, because the capillary veins, the ones like hairs, are so small that the spurts can't be felt beyond them. The blood in the veins is thick and dark, because it has taken up all the impurities from the system; but when it gets to the lungs your breath takes up all these and carries them off, leaving the blood pure again for another round. Now the arteries are long elastic tubes, that is to say, they will stretch a little, and fly back again, if you pull them, and when one is cut nearly but not quite off, the contraction keeps it wide open. If it is cut or torn entirely in two, the end draws back, and nine times in ten, if the artery is a small one, the drawing back shuts the end up entirely and the blood stops. But it is better to tear it than to cut it, because when torn the edges are jagged and it shrivels up more. I don't quite understand why, myself, but that is what the surgical books say. When anybody is hurt and bleeding badly, the first thing to do is to find out whether it is an artery or a vein that's cut. If the blood is bright and comes out in spurts, it's an artery. If it is dark, and flows steadily, it's a vein. If it's an artery and isn't cut quite in two, tear it in two. If that don't stop it, you must make a knot in a handkerchief and then press your finger above the cut in different places till you find where the artery is by the blood stopping. Then put the knot on that place and tie the handkerchief around the limb. You can stop a vein in the same way and more easily, but if it's a vein you must tie the handkerchief so that the cut place will be between it and the heart. You see the blood comes from the heart in the arteries, and goes back towards the heart in the veins, and so to stop an artery you tie inside, and to stop a vein outside of the cut place."
I think it altogether probable that Master Sam would have gone into quite a lecture on anatomy and minor surgery, if little Judie had not waked up just then complaining of hunger. What he told the boys, however, is well worth remembering. He took little Judie on his lap and sent the two boys out to find a field of potatoes or corn. When they came back all four made a breakfast of raw sweet potatoes, drinking water which Tom brought in his wool hat from a creek not very far away. Sam grew stronger during the day, and at night the party set out on their way to Fort Glass. Sam's foot was not painful, but he was afraid of starting the blood again, and so he held it up, walking with a rude crutch which he had made during the day.
CHAPTER IV.
SAM FINDS IT NECESSARY TO THINK.