"Yes! I am afraid I shall not prove a very efficient surgeon; but I will do my best. I hold the St. John's Ambulance medal, so you might be worse off," she said, with a wan smile.
"Much," he agreed.
"Now that you are conscious I am going to leave you for a few minutes. I must find something that will serve for splints."
Without more ado she departed, taking with her an ax, and presently through the stillness of the forest there reached him the sound of chopping. In spite of his pain he smiled to himself, then after listening for awhile, he began to try and ascertain the extent of his injuries for himself. There was a warm trickle on his face and he guessed that there was a gash somewhere; his body seemed to be one great sore, from which he deducted that he was badly bruised; whilst his leg pained him intolerably. Lying as he was on the flat of his back, he couldn't see the leg, and desiring to do so he made a great effort and sat up. As he did so, he groaned heavily, and incontinently fainted.
He was still unconscious when the girl returned, and after one quick look of alarm she nodded to herself. "A faint," she whispered. "Perhaps it is just as well."
With a knife she ripped the breeches leg right up the seam, then with the aid of moss and a blanket, together with the rough splints she had cut, she made a shift to set the broken leg. Twice during the operation Stane opened his eyes, groaned heavily, and passed into unconsciousness again.
Helen did not allow these manifestations of suffering to deflect her from her task. She knew that her unskilled surgery was bound to pain him severely, and she welcomed the lapses into unconsciousness, since they made her task easier. At last she gave a sob of relief and stood up to survey her handiwork. The splicing and the binding looked terribly rough, but she was confident that the fractured ends of bone were in position, and in any case she had done her best.
After that she busied herself with building a fire, and after heating water, washed the wound on Stane's forehead, and carefully examined him for other injuries. There were bruises in plenty, but so far as she could discover no broken bones, and when she had satisfied herself on that point, she turned to other tasks.
Cutting a quantity of young spruce-boughs she fashioned them into a bed close beside where he lay, and filled all the interstices with springy moss, laying over all a blanket. That done, she turned once more to Stane, to find him with eyes wide open, watching her.
"I have set your leg," she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. "I've done the best I could, though I am afraid it is rather a rough piece of work."