Heraka signed to a warrior, who cut the thongs and Will, sitting up, rubbed them carefully until the blood flowed back in its natural channels. Meanwhile he observed the band and counted sixteen warriors, all but Heraka seeming to be the wildest of wild Indians, most of them entirely naked save for moccasins and the breech cloth. They carried muzzle-loading rifles, bows and arrows hung from the bushes and lances leaned against the trees. Beyond the bushes he caught glimpses of their ponies grazing, and these glimpses were sufficient to show him that they had many extra animals for the packs. When he saw them better, then he would know whether his friends were really dead, because if they were their packs and the animals would be there, too. But the chief, Heraka, broke in upon the thought—he seemed able to read Will's mind.
"This is but part of the force that besieged you," he said. "There were three bands joined. The others with the spoil have gone west, leaving as our share the prisoner. A living captive is worth more than two scalps."
Will tried to remember all he had ever heard or read about the necessity of stoicism when in the hands of savage races and by a supreme effort of the will he was able to put a little of it into practice. Pretending to indifference, he asked if he might have something to eat, and received roasted meat of the buffalo. He had a good appetite, despite his weakness and headache, and when he had eaten in abundance and had drunk a gourd of water they gave him he felt better.
"I thank you for binding up my wounded head," he said to Heraka. "I don't know your motive in doing so, but I thank you just the same."
The Dakota chief smiled grimly.
"We do not wish you to die yet," he said, speaking his English in the precise, measured manner of one to whom it is a foreign language. "Inmutanka, the Panther, bound it up, and he is one of the best healers we have."
"Then I thank also Inmutanka, or the Panther, whichever he prefers to be called. I can't see the top of my head, but I know he made a good job of it."
Inmutanka proved to be an elderly but robust Sioux warrior, and however he may have been when torture was going forward he wore just then a bland smile, although not much else. With wonderfully light and skilful hands he took off Will's bandage and replaced it with another. Will never knew what it was made of, but it seemed to be lined with leaves steeped in the juices of herbs.
The Indians had some simple remedies of great power, and he felt the effect of the new bandage at once. His headache began to abate rapidly, and with the departure of pain his views of life became much more cheerful.
"I never saw you before, Dr. Inmutanka," he said, "but I know you're one of the finest physicians in all the West. Whatever school you graduated from should give you all the degrees it has to give. Again, I thank you."