“Yes; he has been badly wounded, and otherwise ill-used; but we have hopes of his recovery.”
“Take me to him! I have learnt a little surgery from my Indian friends. Let me see your comrade! Perhaps I may be of some service to him?”
“We have already dressed his wounds; and I believe nothing more can be done for him, except what time may accomplish. But I have another comrade who suffers from wounds of a different nature, which you alone can cure.”
“Wounds of a different nature?” repeated she, evidently puzzled by my ambiguous speech; “of what nature, may I ask?” I paused before making reply.
Whether she had any suspicion of a double meaning to my words, I could not tell. If so, it was not openly evinced, but most artfully concealed by the speech that followed. “During my stay among the Utahs,” said she, “I have had an opportunity of seeing wounds of many kinds, and have observed their mode of treating them. Perhaps I may know how to do something for those of your comrade? But you say that I alone can cure them?”
“You, and you only.”
“How is that, stranger? I do not understand you!”
“The wounds I speak of are not in the body.”
“Where, then?”
“In the heart.”