They grasped his hand, one by one, and shook his good arm heartily.
"Was that where you caught the bullet?" asked Henry, looking at the bad arm.
Long Jim nodded.
"Broke?"
Long Jim shook his head.
"Thought so at first," he replied, "but it ain't. Bruised more'n anything else, but it's been terrible sore. Gittin' better now, though. I'll hev the use uv it back all right in a week."
"It seems that you haven't been faring so badly," said Henry.
Long Jim looked around the little valley and grinned in appreciation.
"I knowed I couldn't do anything about the fort with this bad arm," he said. "Weakened ez I wuz, I wuzn't shore I could swim the river with one arm, an' even ef I ever reached the fort I'd be more likely to be a hindrance than a help. So I found this place, an' here I've stayed, restin' an' recuperatin' an' waitin' fur you fellers to come back. I didn't want to shoot, 'cause them that I didn't want to hear might hear it, an' 'cause, too, I knowed how to set traps an' snares."
"We saw one of them as we came along," said Henry.