d and how much water. When this was made he asked her for
milk; this also he boiled and made some arrow-root, and told the woman
to give that and the Liebig alternately every three or four hours. The
benefit the child had received had created a most favourable impression
towards Edgar in the community, and several of them came round him as he
left the tent to ask for medicine. Edgar was sorely puzzled, and
determined that if he could do no good he would certainly do no harm. He
thought it likely that most of the illnesses were imaginary, "For why,"
he said to himself as he looked at three of them who were all placing
their hands on their stomachs and twisting about to show that they were
suffering great pain, "should they be all bad together?" There was in
the chest a large bottle of pills marked "blue-pills," and of these he
gave two to each applicant.

One case of those who applied was of a very different character. It was
a boy some fifteen years old. He crawled up on his hands and knees, and
sitting down took off some bandages and showed him his leg. It was
terribly inflamed from the instep up to the knee, with a great sloughing
wound that showed the bone for two or three inches. It was evidently the
result of a serious graze, perhaps caused by falling on to a sharp rock.
Had it been attended to at first it would have been trifling, but
doubtless the boy thought nothing of it and had continued to get about
as usual. The sand and dirt had got into the wound, inflammation had set
in, and the leg was now in a very serious state.

Edgar felt a little more certain of his ground this time, for he
remembered that one of the fellows at River-Smith's house had had a bad
leg after a severe kick on the shin at football, and he knew what had
been done for it. The lad's father, who was one of the elderly men who
had remained in camp, had accompanied him. Edgar told him that, in the
first place, he wanted a good deal of water made hot. The chest
contained a half-gallon bottle of carbolic acid, and searching among the
smaller bottles Edgar found one containing caustic. When the lad's
father returned with the hot water, Edgar bathed the wound for a long
time; then he poured a little of the acid into a calabash of cold water,
dipped a piece of cotton cloth into it, folded it several times, and
laid it on the wound, then wrapped another cloth soaked in water round
and round the limb, and explained as well as he could to the father th