rounded edges, a strip of
soft skin, and a bit of stick three or four inches long and as thick as
your finger, to make a tourniquet with."

By the time that these were ready a perfect stillness reigned in the
camp. The whole of the natives had gone away to a distance of over a
quarter of a mile, and were sitting in a group watching the tents, and,
Godfrey had no doubt, debating hotly as to the folly of allowing a
stranger to have anything to do with the son of their employer. He now
followed Alexis into the tent, where all was in readiness. The child's
head was slightly raised by a skin folded and placed under it. His
mother knelt beside him.

"What do you wish me to do?" the Buriat asked.

"I wish you to stand beside him and aid his mother to hold him should he
struggle, and I may need you to dip the rag into the warm water, squeeze
it out, and give it me."

"Of course he will struggle," the Buriat said; "we men can bear pain,
but a child cannot."

"I am going to try to put him to sleep," Alexis replied; "a sleep so
sound that he will not wake with the pain. I do not say that I shall be
able to, but I will try."

The Buriat looked at Alexis as if he doubted his sanity. That a Russian
doctor should be able to take off the child's leg was within his
comprehension. He had once seen a man in the street of Irkutsk with only
one arm, but that anyone could make a child sleep so soundly that he
would not wake under such an operation seemed to him beyond the bounds
of possibility.

"Tell the child that I am going to do him good," Alexis said to the
mother, "and that he is to look at my eyes steadily." He placed himself
at the side of the couch and gazed down steadily at the child; then he
began to make passes slowly down his face. For three or four minutes the
black eyes looked into his unwinkingly, then the lids closed a little.
Alexis continued his efforts, the lids drooped more and more until they
closed completely. He continued the motions of his hand for another
minute or two, then stooping he lifted an eyelid; the eye was turned
upwards, so that the iris was no longer visible.

"Thank God, he has gone off!" he said. "Now for the tourniquet. That is
right; twist gradually now, Godfrey, and place the stone on the main
artery. Now," he said to the Buriat, "hold this stick firm with one hand
and place the other on his chest to prevent his moving. Do you lay your
arm across him," this to the mother; "that is right. K