There was a great outcry from the party when Helen appeared in the arms of Lewis with an ostentatious bandage on her ankle, so that the verdict of a sprain was established without the attending physician’s having to perjure himself with a false diagnosis.
Helen was looking very pale and tired, and thankful indeed was she for the bony back of Josephus, that was destined to bear her home. She and Bobby both found room on the patient old mule, who started off with his usual bird-like spirit, seemingly proud of his fair burden.
“I am afraid we are too much for Josephus,” Helen said to Josh.
“Naw’m! Josephus is proud to tote the likes of you allses. He is jes’ a been tellin’ we uns that he is thankful his short leg is up the mounting so Miss Helen will ride mo’ easy like.”
“Well, I’ll give him some sugar when we get home,” laughed Helen.
Dr. Wright kept close by the side of the mule wherever the trail permitted and once or twice held out his hand to feel the pulse of the patient. That is the danger of snake bite: that the pulse may become feeble. The old treatment of whisky, drunk in large quantities, is now thought to have been the cause of more deaths from snake bites than the bites themselves. Persons unaccustomed to liquor could not stand the large doses that were poured down them by well-meaning friends. The present day treatment is: strychnia to keep up the pulse and the thorough burning out of the wound, after it has been sucked by a healthy mouth.
A sprained ankle is nothing to dampen the spirits of youth and so the crowd went back as gaily as it came. Helen could not help thinking how differently they would have behaved had they known the true inwardness of her having to ride on the back of the mule that reminded her of nothing so much as a saw-horse. Had they understood that a rattlesnake had taken a nip out of her tendon Achilles, it would have put an end to their cheerfulness and also an end to their week-end boarders if she was not mistaken.
“Suppose it is going to do me as it did old Uncle Snake-bit Peter we used to see up at Wytheville,” she said to herself, “with his leg all drawn up and shrivelled.” She got giddy at the thought and then it was that Dr. Wright, who seemed to know exactly what was in her mind, put out his hand and felt her pulse and then gave her another tiny pellet. He looked so good and so dependable and seemed so confident that all was going well with her, she felt she must perforce have faith in him.
“‘I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help,’” came to her lips, and she whispered the text softly.