The woman began at once to see to the fire, and fetch water from the river, and only once showed any sign of resentment. That was on the morning following her coming, when my uncle began to unfasten his patient’s bandages after dressing my arm.
This she tried to stop by seizing my uncle’s hand, but at a word from her husband she sat down and watched the whole process. After that the morning performance of the surgical duties was looked for with the greatest interest, the woman fetching water and waiting upon my uncle during his attention to both his patients.
The days passed on, with my wound troubling me but very little. The prisoner’s was far worse, but he did not seem to suffer, settling down quite happily in a dreamy way, and as no danger came near, the shooting and collecting went on, my uncle going alone, and leaving Pete and Cross to protect me and the camp.
Fortunately we had a sufficiency of stores, my uncle shot for provisions as well as science; I helped by sitting down in one particular spot by the rushing stream and catching fish almost as fast as I could throw in, and Mapah, as the woman’s name seemed to be, went off every morning and returned loaded with wild fruit and certain roots, which she and her husband ate eagerly.
Some very good specimens were brought in by my uncle, and the two Indians sat watching us curiously as we busily skinned them, filled them out, and laid them to dry, Mapah eagerly taking possession of the tail-feathers of some parrots intended to be cooked for the evening’s meal, and weaving them into a band of plaited grass so as to form tiaras of the bright-hued plumes for herself and her husband, both wearing them with no little show of pride.
“And only to think of it, Master Nat,” said Pete. “Reg’larly cheated me when I see ’em first over the bushes; I made sure they was birds.”
They expressed a good deal of pleasure, too, over some of the brighter birds brought in, and our prisoner talked and made signs to me and pointed in one direction as he tried hard to make me understand something one day; but I was alone with him, and very dense for a time, as in a crippled way I put the finishing touches to the skin of a brilliant kingfisher.
Then all at once I grasped his meaning.
“Why, of course!” I cried. “How thick-headed of me!”
I went to the bamboo half-box, half-basket Cross had made, and brought it back to where the Indian was sitting nursing his wounded leg, took off the lid, and carefully withdrew the trogon.