"S-sh, but that hurts! This wolfskin's most too much on me, isn't it,
father?"
The man softly, yet awkwardly, lifted the robe, folded it back, and
slowly uncovered the knee. The leg was worn away almost to skin and
bone, but the knee itself was swollen with inflammation. He bathed it
with some water, mixed with vinegar and herbs, then drew down the
deer-skin shirt, and did the same with the child's shoulder. Both
shoulder and knee bore the marks of teeth,--where a huge wildcat had
made havoc--and the body had long red scratches.
Presently the man shook his head sorrowfully, and covered up the small
disfigured frame again, but this time with a tanned skin of the caribou.
The flames of the huge wood-fire dashed the walls and floor with a
velvety red and black, and the large iron kettle, bought of the Company
at Fort Sacrament, puffed out geysers of steam.
The place was a low hut with parchment windows and rough mud-mortar
lumped between the logs. Skins hung along two sides, with bullet-holes
and knife-holes showing: of the great gray wolf, the red puma, the
bronze hill-lion, the beaver, the bear, and the sable; and in one corner
was a huge pile of them. Bare of the usual comforts as the room was, it
had a sort of refinement also, joined to an inexpressible loneliness,
you could scarce have told how or why.
"Father," said the boy, his face pinched with pain for a moment, "it
hurts so, all over, every once in a while.
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