CHAPTER XII
A DASTARDLY DEED
“HOW!”
As Corporal Roger Bracknell opened his eyes, this characteristic Indian greeting broke on his ears, and he stirred uneasily. Slowly the full consciousness of things came back to him, and with it the sense of intolerable pain in one of his legs. He raised his head to look at the leg and stretched a hand towards it at the same time. Another hand intervened hastily.
“No. Not dat! You damage ze leg, if you touch. It vaire bad!”
The corporal turned his eyes. The two men were standing near the bale of skins on which he was lying, one of them of pure Indian blood, and the second, who had uttered the warning, manifestly a half-breed. Behind them in the darkness of the tepee was a third man, also an Indian. He addressed himself to the half-breed.
“How did I come here?”
“Lagoun and Canim dey find you on ze trail. A tree hav’ fallen an’ crack your leg like a shell of the egg. You not able to move, so dat eef dey not come soon, you dead mans along of ze cold which freeze ze blood. Dey bring you here an’ I set ze leg, so dat it grow together again. Dat is all!”
Coporal Bracknell looked towards the two Indians. “I am very grateful to you, Lagoun and Canim, and I shall not forget,” he said. “I shall report good of them at the Post. But where am I?”