or. "Yes; these Indians are friendly, but
we must be on our guard. Don't show that we are suspicious though.
Help me as I dress this arm. Maude, my child, you had better go into
the waggon."

"I am not afraid, father," she said, quietly.

"Stay, then," he said. "You can be of use, perhaps."

He spoke like this, for, in their rough frontier life, the girl had had
more than one experience of surgery. Men had been wounded in fights
with the Indians; others had suffered from falls and tramplings from
horses, while on more than one occasion the Doctor had had to deal with
terrible injuries, the results of gorings from fierce bulls. For it is
a strange but well-known fact in those parts, that the domestic cattle
that run wild from the various corrals or enclosures, and take to the
plains, are ten times more dangerous than the fiercest bison or buffalo,
as they are commonly called, that roam the wilds.

Meanwhile the rest of the band leaped lightly down from their ponies,
and paying not the slightest heed to the white party, proceeded to
gather wood and brush to make themselves a fire, some unpacking buffalo
meat, and one bringing forward a portion of a prong-horn antelope.

The Doctor was now busily examining his patient's arm, cutting away the
rough bandages, and laying bare a terrible injury.

He was not long in seeing its extent, and he knew that if some necessary
steps were not taken at once, mortification of the limb would set in,
and the result would be death.

The Indian's eyes glittered as he keenly watched the Doctor's face. He
evidently knew the worst, and it was this which had made him seek white
help, though of course he was not aware how fortunate he had been in his
haphazard choice. He must have been suffering intense pain, but not a
nerve quivered, not a muscle moved, while, deeply interested, Joses came
closer, rested his arms upon the top of his rifle, and looked down.

"Why, he's got an arrow run right up his arm all along by the bone,
master," exclaimed the frontier man; "and he has been trying to pull it
out, and it's broken in."

"Right, Joses," said the Doctor, quietly; "and worse than that, the head
of the arrow is fixed in the bone."

"Ah, I couldn't tell that," said Joses, coolly.

"I wish I could speak his dialect," continued the Doctor. "I shall have
to operate severely if his arm is to be saved, and I don't want him or
his men to pay me my fee with a crack from a tomahawk."