The Search for an Antidote—Can Rory be Dead?—Seth to the Rescue—Seth as Doctor and Nurse.
“I reckon,” said Seth to himself, “that there’ll be just about light enough to find ’em. Good thing now that the moon is full, for they do say that gathered under the full moon their virtue is increased fourfold, and what is more, old Seth believes it. Hullo! it strikes me Rory is in luck. Here they grow as large as life, and twice as natural.”
They were a deal bigger than Seth at all events. Tall and graceful stems with an immensity of leaf, probably a plant belonging to the Solanaceae family.
“I won’t spare you,” continued this curious Yankee trapper.
Nor did he. He quite filled his arms with both stems and leaves, and hastened back to the glade where lay poor Rory, to all appearance dead, and surrounded by his sorrowing friends.
“Clear the course,” cried Seth, “for once in a way, gentlemen; Seth will save the boy if there be a save in him. Carry him along to the lake. Gently with him.”
There was little need of the latter precaution. McBain, hoping against hope, took him up in his arms as tenderly as if he had been a child, and apparently with as much ease, and carried him after Seth to the Great Snow Lake. Here he was laid softly down, and the trapper proceeded in the most masterly manner to bathe and rinse Rory’s terrible wounds. The white milky juice from the fleshy stem of the curious plant was then dropped into them, and they were carefully covered over with bruised leaves.
“There is little else we can do now,” said Seth, “but set us down to watch.”
“And pray,” murmured McBain. Then he said aloud, “I do not doubt your skill, friend Seth, but here I fear there is more to contend with than mortal power can hope to cope with. The poor boy is dead.”
For well-nigh an hour they sat beside him; gloaming had deepened into night, and a fire had been lighted which brought forth Rembrandtine shadows from the woods, and cast its beams far over the broad lake, until they were swallowed up in the darkness. An hour, and yet no signs of returning life—a whole hour, and they still seemed to look on poor Rory as on the face of the dead.