“That’s so. But—are broken legs in your line?”
“I have a notion that the bone-setter has to straighten and adjust the fracture by main force, and then bind the limb tightly, leaving the rest to nature. We have a spare oar. Chop the blade into two lengths of about fifteen inches, and get the girls to cut narrow strips out of the canvas cover. Bring me my oilskin, and what is left of the cover. We can carry her in that. Leave the rifle with me—and hurry! On no account must either Nina or Madge come away from the boat. Be sure and impress that on them. We may have to run for our lives any second.”
Sturgess soon returned with the improvised splints and bandages. He also brought a tin of beef essence which Madge had found among the boat’s stores and was hoarding carefully for such Lucullian feast when soup would appear on the menu.
When Maseden spoke of the remains of the canvas cover he had in mind the fact that the girls had fashioned the greater part of the coarse material into divided skirts. Seals were not plentiful in Rotunda Bay, and the devising of garments had become a sheer necessity.
They persuaded the Indian girl to swallow some of the beef extract. After tasting the first mouthful she would have emptied the tin, but this Maseden would not permit, because he knew the ordeal that was coming.
It was a tough job, too. In a sense, it almost proved more trying for the amateur surgeons than for their unfortunate patient. Luckily, she fainted at the first wrench. Then they set their teeth and pulled the broken bones into their correct positions as well as they could adjudge them. When the girl revived she was already clothed in the oilskin and slung in the canvas sheet as in a hammock, while the limb was bound immovably between two roughly fashioned splints.
Maseden imagined that this creature of the wild was, in all probability, as hardy as a cormorant, and equally voracious. At any rate, when laid in the boat, she gobbled up the remaining contents of the tin, ate ravenously of ship’s biscuits and salt beef, and drank a mug of coffee in a gulp. When she discovered that no more food would be supplied she yielded to an evidently overwhelming desire to sleep.
Before closing her eyes, however, she had something to say. She was afraid of the men, but obviously placed trust in the two girls, neither of whom knew a syllable of Spanish beyond the few phrases which all travelers in South America must perforce acquire.
Madge, having the gift of music, contrived to mimic certain words with tolerable accuracy, and “smoke,” “boats,” “bad men,” seemed, to Maseden’s ear, to emerge from the guttural Indian accents. In one important respect, the wishes of the new addition to the party were quite understandable. She pointed to Providence Beach, indicated the boat, and made it clear that she counselled a prompt move eastward.
At last Maseden evolved a fairly intelligible notion of what she was endeavoring to convey. He believed, and rightly so, that she was telling her rescuers how a number of Indians had been attracted to Hanover Island by the smoke of the castaways’ fire. They assumed a wreck, with its prospect of loot, and, egged on by greed, had ultimately dared a passage hitherto regarded as impracticable. Some had been killed; others had escaped, and were now on the camping-ground at Providence Beach.