The speaker moved forward, and, without the aid of a light, tenderly placed Mayne Fairfax upon a couch, deep with soft dressed skins. Then he ignited a tiny pile of bark films, which soon communicated a warmth to a heap of sticks, which blazed and crackled with some fury.
“Here, Wolf, quit smelling around the patient,” cried the giant, turning to his charge. “I’m the doctor in this case, and I’m about to see what can be done. May be he isn’t so badly hurt as I opine. That arrow,” he continued, after a long silence, during which he had critically examined the hunter’s wounds, “that arrow must be pulled through. I’m not much of a surgeon, but I reckon as how I have managed some pretty dangerous cases. Here goes! If that arrow ain’t taken out, a certain young man will never shoulder a rifle again.”
A protuberance on the young hunter’s back told the giant that the arrow had nearly gone through the body, and delicately, yet firmly, the rude surgeon set to work. His keen hunting-knife first severed the shaft; then made the incision, and the remainder of the shaft was withdrawn. Then some astringent liniment was rubbed on and into the wounds, which were covered with strong adhesive plasters.
As this operation was completed, Mayne Fairfax groaned and opened his eyes.
His first inquiry regarded his situation.
“You’re in the home of Bill Hewitt,” answered the giant, “and he has just pulled the arrow of that madwoman from your body. Luckily, as I have discovered, it struck no vital part. The deviation of an inch, either to the right or the left, would have rendered my surgical operations unnecessary. So you may begin to believe in special providences.”
Fairfax tried to answer, but the condition of his throat, torn by the jaws of the gray wolf, baffled him.
“I’ll dress your breathing apparatus right now,” said Hewitt, “and then I opine you can chatter away like a parrot.”
The young hunter never winced under the pain occasioned by the dressing of his throat.
“It’s best for you to stay down for a few days,” said Hewitt, after completing the operation. “Exertion of body may irritate your breast wound, and end in something disagreeable. I’ll stay with you all the time, for I don’t go visiting much in these parts, nor these times. Now just lay still, but talk to me while I get supper for two; tell me all about yourself, and what brought you alone away down here. Boy, you look like a Virginian.”