The sight of his poor wounded arm made her feel sick, for it evidently had been neglected from the first.
“How did it happen?” Shesa asked, as she tore her apron into bandages and directed the woman to boil some water on the open fire which she had seen outside.
She saw that Ima wanted to talk, sick and weary as he was.
“I was taking a stroll alone one evening,” he explained, “not thinking of the least danger, for our camp lights were scarcely out of sight. Suddenly I heard the report of a gun, and felt an awful pain in my right arm. One of the bandits had evidently spotted me from ambush. I’d have been all right, but the fellow or an accomplice sprang upon me, and after a struggle knocked me senseless and took my emergency kit and everything else useful away from me. The settler who owns this cabin found me and brought me up here on his shoulders. His wife did what she could for my wound, but it became infected almost immediately, and I was too weak from loss of blood to walk back to camp, even with the man’s help. Besides, in some way, I had a sprained ankle.”
“Well, dear, you are going to be helped in every way soon, so don’t talk any more,” said Shesa, taking off some of the dirty rags which the woman had tied clumsily upon Ima’s ankle. She bathed the ankle in hot water and bound it firmly in a figure-of-eight bandage, which gave him the first ease from pain since the accident.
She replaced the outside layers of the dirty bandages on his wounded arm. “The wounds may bleed if I take the dressings off,” she decided wisely, “and I have no remedies here.”
“I wonder why the man didn’t go for help?” she thought.
Just at that moment Ima whispered, “I would have sent word to camp, but for some reason the settler seems afraid—of the bandits, maybe.”
“Well,” said Shesa, “you rest here, and we’ll soon have help.”
“But, Shesa, it will be dangerous for you to go,” said Ima. Then suddenly, “Why, how did you happen to come here, anyhow?”