I saw Cross frown as he followed my uncle, and Pete stopped for a moment behind with me.
“I mustn’t stop, Master Nat,” he said. “I am sorry, sir, but don’t you be a downhearted ’un. I shan’t be long. I say: who was right about the axe?”
I nodded my thanks to him, and then sat back, in acute pain, thinking about the sudden change in the state of our affairs, and of how necessary it would be for us to retreat into a safer part of the country. It was all so unexpected and so vexatious, just as in all probability we might be on the point of discovering the birds we sought.
I was musing in a half-faint way, the pain and shock having made me feel very sick, when I heard the sounds of the returning party, and to my surprise they brought in the wounded Indian on Cross’s back, the poor fellow being in a half-fainting condition from a frightful wound in the right thigh.
As he was laid down on his back he began to come-to, and looked wildly round, while when he saw my uncle approach him knife in hand, he set his teeth and made a fierce attempt to rise.
But Cross was holding him from behind, and the poor fellow was helpless. He evidently believed that his enemy was about to put him to death, and on finding that he could not help himself he seemed ready to calmly accept his fate, for he fixed his eyes upon my uncle with a bitter, contemptuous smile, and then folded his arms and lay there like an image cast in bronze.
It was not a fierce countenance, being smooth, large-eyed, and disposed to be effeminate and plump, while when my uncle busied himself over the terrible wound with the knife, and must have given the man excruciating pain, he did not even wince, but kept gazing hard at his surgeon who tortured him, as if proud and defiant to the last.
His expression only began to change when he saw the knife laid aside and Pete bring some water in the tin for my uncle to bathe the wound; and now it was full of wonder as the place was covered with lint from the pocket-book, and then carefully bandaged from the supply ready against accidents.
“There, my fine fellow,” said my uncle at last; “now if you keep quiet, you being a healthy fellow, young and strong, that bad wound will soon heal. If you had left us alone you would not have got it. You don’t understand, of course; but you must lie still.”
The Indian’s countenance changed more than ever. He had fully grasped the fact that he was not to be slain, and also that his wound had been carefully dressed, and with his fierce aspect completely gone, he took hold of the hand with which my uncle was pressing him back to lie still, and held it against his forehead, smiling up at him the while; and then he sank back and closed his eyes.