The Adventure of Old Sun’s Wife
When a mere maid, the chief of the Gros Ventres Indians kidnaped her and, binding her securely to himself, rode off for his own village. When within sight of their destination the girl stabbed him, killing him. This feat not only won her the right to wear three eagle feathers, but Old Sun, the rich and powerful chief of the North Blackfeet Indians of Canada, made her his wife.
Robert, after ploughing all one cold, rainy afternoon, took a griping chill and developed a cough which troubled him for some days. He said nothing about it, and kept on with his work when he should have been in bed, for he dreaded the hospital, and was careful to minimize all his bad symptoms, but one morning he found himself unable to rise, and the doctor pronounced him a very sick boy—“Another case of pneumonia,” said he.
Robert was silent as they moved him across the road into the men’s ward of the little hospital; but his eyes, bright with fever, seemed to plead for something, and when the agent bent down to ask him if he wanted anything, the boy whispered, “Stay with me.”
“All right, Robert, I’ll watch with you to-night. I must go now, but I’ll come back at noon.”
It was a long day for the sick boy, who watched and listened, giving little heed to the nurse who was tirelessly active in ministering to his needs. He knew just what was going on each minute. He listened for the assembly bell at seven o’clock. He could see the boys in their uniforms lining up in the halls. Now they were marching to chapel. They were singing the first song—he could hear them. Now they were listening to the little talk of the superintendent—and all was quiet.
At last they went whooping to their games in the play hour just before bedtime, and it seemed hard to lie there and hear them and be alone and forgotten. “The teachers will come to see me,” he thought, “and some of the boys.” But they did not come. It began to grow dark at last, and the taciturn nurse lit a smoking lamp and sat down to read. When she asked him a question it sounded like the snarl of a cat, but her hands were tender and deft. Oh, it was hard to be sick and lie still so long!
When the agent came in the boy said: “Major, tell my mother. Let her come. Tell her I’m very sick, Major!”
“All right, Robert. I’ll take the first opportunity to send her word. But she’s a long way off, you know. I hear she went to Tah-You’s old camp. But I will watch with you, my boy. Go to sleep and rest.”