The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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in the cases of grown men similarly situated. It was some time before he recovered sufficiently to be able to risk the dangerous climb down the cliff on the inner side of the pinnacle. At last, however, they found themselves again safely in the dory, where, of course, his companions would not allow him to think of rowing. Progress against the wind and sea they found now much slower, and it was almost an hour before they reached the mouth of the creek, where Rob could land on the beach and so walk up toward the hut. By that time his hand was badly swollen and giving him intense pain.
The boys did not attempt to take the dory around to the landing opposite to the hut, but left it moored at the creek mouth. They did not talk a great deal as they returned to the barabbara at the close of their disastrous day. The pain which Rob suffered gave them all concern. It was Skookie once more who proved himself resourceful. Without asking leave of any one, he crossed the lagoon on the stepping-stones and disappeared in the thicket beyond. A few minutes later he appeared with his hands full of coarse green leaves with slender, lance-shaped tips, the name of which none of the boys ever knew.
“Karosha,” he said — “all right, all right,” and so proceeded to bind these on Rob’s wounded fingers. Having wrapped them in a number of the leaves, he led Rob to the edge of the creek, and here made up a big ball of mud, which he plastered over the entire hand.
“Now I am a pretty sight,” said Rob. “I was going to wash my hands, but maybe this will do. I have heard that natives sometimes know a thing or two about taking care of such things.”
The native lad’s knowledge of simples proved more efficient than any of them had dreamed. In the course of half an hour Rob’s face brightened. “Why,” said he, “I don’t believe it hurts so badly now. Skookie, you are a great little doctor.” And, indeed, that night he slept as soundly as any, although they all spent less time than usual that evening in talk about the doings of the day.
XXV
CRIPPLES’ CASTLE
“Well,” said Jesse, just before noon of the following day, as he stooped to enter the door of the barabbara, “accidents never come singly.” His face was drawn with pain, as Rob, to whom he spoke, noticed.
“What’s up, Jess?” asked Rob. “Has anything happened?”
“I struck my foot against an old nail or something of the sort,” answered Jesse. “A piece of an old klipsie was lying out in the grass, and it has cut through my shoe and gone into my foot.”
Rob sat up on the blanket where he had been nursing his own crippled hand. “An old nail!” he said. “Lucky if it wasn’t worse! No telling what the point of it might do toward poisoning the wound. I’ll tell you right now that I don’t want even any rusty nails around my feet, let alone the irons of an old fox trap.”
“I’ve heard of such things as lockjaw,” said Jesse. “There was a boy in our town had it, and he was just walking along and struck his foot against an old nail in a shingle.” His face seemed grave.
“Now, don’t go to talking about that,” said Rob. “When a fellow gets scared of anything is when he catches it. They say that if a man goes to Africa and expects to come down with a fever he always does, and if he doesn’t think anything about it he probably gets along all right. Now, let’s have a look at your foot. Take off your shoe; and put the kettle on the fire, so that we can get some warm water. The first thing always is to keep a cut clean; and I have read, too, that where there is any rusty nail or toy pistol around the best thing is to keep a wound open.”
“That doesn’t seem to be the way you are treating your fingers,” said Jesse, looking at the cloth in which Rob still kept a big poultice of black mud.
“Well, a poultice draws poison out of a wound, you see,” said Rob, “and mud is good for that. We had a pointer dog once, and he came home with his face all swelled up, and my father said he had been bitten by a snake. We didn’t know what to do, but the dog did; he wouldn’t let any one touch him, but went off to a slough back of the house and lay down in the mud, and he kept his head in the mud for two or three days. He got well all right. Your foot cannot be any worse than if you had been snake-bitten, surely, and you and I ought to have as much sense as the dog. My hand does not hurt now, and I’ll warrant Skookie and I will fix up your foot in a jiffy.”
He put his head out of the door and called for John and Skookie, both of whom presently came, the latter soon returning with a double handful of mud, for which Rob had asked. Meantime they had taken off Jesse’s shoe and stocking, cleaned the wound, and Rob had cut it open even a little wider with his knife — at which Jesse made a wry face.
“I hate to do it, Jess,” said Rob, “but that is what I read doctors do in a case like this. Now for a good poultice. You will be all right in a day or so.”
In truth, they very probably did the very best that could be done in such circumstances. There might have been serious trouble from a wound from an old klipsie barb. Surgeons have died from poison received from knives used in post-mortem work. Lockjaw might very well follow upon a wound from a piece of dirty iron of this kind; but, luckily, the germ of that disease seemed not to exist in this case; at least the treatment which Rob applied proved quite effective and no evil results followed. Although Jesse limped for a time, in a few days he became quite well, and the swelling in the foot amounted to very little.
“But now,” said John one morning, as the three of them sat by the fireside in the barabbara, “we are a fine-looking lot, aren’t we? Just look at us — every one of us has got something the matter with him!” They all took a glance and broke out in a loud laugh together, in which Skookie joined uproariously. As a matter of fact, each one of them was wearing a bandage. Rob had his hand done up, Jesse’s foot was encased in a mud plaster, and John still wore his handkerchief tied over his nose, whose tip he had nearly severed in his attempt at eating after the Aleut fashion.
“Well,” said Rob, “it’s lucky that none of us is hurt bad enough to cripple him seriously, anyway; although I guess Skookie will have to do most of the work of getting wood and water for a day or so yet.”
“There’s no reason why I could not carry wood and water,” said John. “My nose is not in the road.”
“I shouldn’t say it was,” said Jesse. “It never was long enough to get in the road, John, and it seems as though you had tried your best to shorten it as it was.” They never tired of laughing at John for his clumsiness in Aleut table manners.
“Now, see here, Jess,” said John, “if you keep on making fun of my nose I won’t give you any more mud for your old foot. I’m the only one that is not taking the mud cure excepting Skookie. I might just advise you two that about all our salt whale meat is gone, and it is too late now to get any more. It is about time we did some fishing, it seems to me.”
“Well, I don’t want to sit around this way all the time,” said Jesse. “I am for going out in the dory and trying for some fresh codfish. I’m rather tired of salmon again.”
“That’s right,” said Rob. “I was just going to say the same thing. Back home we used to like salmon better than codfish, because the codfish was always salt. Salmon used to be forty cents a pound back in the States, but out here, where we can catch forty pounds in an hour, we don’t like it as well as codfish. All right, Jess, I’m game to go down to the mouth of the creek where we left the dory, and go out in the bay for a try after cod. But how will you get down there with your foot all tied up?”
Jesse put his hand on Skookie’s shoulder. “Oh, that will be easy,” said he. “Skookie and I will go down the creek in the bidarka.”
They agreed to this plan, and Jesse, hobbling out to the edge of the lagoon, picked up one of the bidarka’s paddles — a narrow-bladed, pointed implement such as the Aleuts always use — rested the end of the paddle on the bottom on the other side