“Ah,” said Tom, “it don’t seem much; it ain’t more than a prick.”
One of the natives, however, who was watching what we were about, when he saw the wound, looked grave, and laying his paddle in, came and looked at it.
He said something to Bristol Bob which we did not understand, but as soon as he heard it the latter said,—
“Well, it don’t look much, but it may give me my walking ticket. Here, take my knife—it’s sharp enough; and if you can feel anything inside, cut it out.”
Tom felt carefully round the wound, and after some little time said,—
“I feel something like a splinter here, about an inch and a half from the hole.”
“Cut it out, then,” said Bristol Bob. “Don’t be afeared, but cut well in.”
Tom said he hardly liked to do so, but the wounded man insisted; so Tom cut in carefully, and found imbedded in the flesh a splinter of bone as sharp as a needle and two inches long, which he drew out and gave to his patient.
“Ah,” he said, “ ’tis as I thought. It’s one of they bone-pointed arrows has struck me, and they’s woundy poisonous things.”
I had now taken off my own shirt, which was but a ragged garment, and begun to tear it into strips to bind the wound up, but Bristol Bob said,—