Chapter Sixteenth.
"Calamity is man's true touchstone."
"You have talked too much, señor," Juanita said with concern, noting the look of utter exhaustion that came over his face with the last words; "I am but a poor nurse to have allowed it. Your lips are parched too," she added, dropping her work and gliding from the tent to return a moment later with a gourd full of the cold, sparkling water of the mountain stream.
She raised his head and held the cup to his lips.
He drank with feverish eagerness.
As he lay back upon his couch again Juanita remarked that his wounds must be painful and in need of dressing, adding that Light-of-the-Morning, Thunder-Cloud's wife, who had great knowledge of the virtues of many plants and roots growing in that region, would soon come in and dress them with a certain kind of leaf that was famed among the Indians for its healing qualities, and had already worked wonders for him.
"And she has been dressing my hurts all these days?" asked Rupert.
"Yes."
"Ah, how long have I lain here, señora?"
"Three weeks, señor," she answered, and at that moment the old squaw he had seen before came in bearing a bark basket filled with the healing leaves.