I did so I felt a sudden jar
as though some one had taken a board and struck me over the head with
all his might. Then, as I slowly became aware, my head was utterly and
entirely detached from my body, and went sailing off, deliberately, in
front of me. I could see it going distinctly, and yet, oddly enough, I
could also see a sudden change come on the face of the girl who was
stooping before me, and who at the moment raised her eyes.

"It is strange," thought I, "but my head, thus detached, is going to
pass directly above her, right there!"

Then I ceased to take interest in anything, and sank back into the arms
of that from which we come, calmly taking bold of the hand of Mystery.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TEST

I awoke, I knew not how much later, into a world which at first had a
certain warm comfort and languid luxury about it. Then I felt a sharp
wrenching and a great pain in my neck, to which it seemed my departed
head had, after all, returned. Stimulated by this pain, I turned and
looked up into the face of Auberry. He stood frowning, holding in his
hand a feathered arrow shaft of willow, grooved along its sides to let
the blood run free, sinew-wrapped to hold its feathers tight--a typical
arrow of the buffalo tribes. But, as I joined Auberry's gaze, I saw the
arrow was headless! Dully I argued that, therefore, this head must be
somewhere in my neck. I also saw that the sun was bright. I realized
that there must have been a fight of some sort, but did not trouble to
know whence the arrow had come to me, for my mind could grasp nothing
more than simple things.

Thus I felt that my head was not uncomfortable, after all. I looked
again, and saw that it rested on Ellen Meriwether's knees. She sat on
the sand, gently stroking my forehead, pushing back the hair. She had
turned my head so that the wound would not be pressed. It seemed to me
that her voice sounded very far away and quiet.

"We are thinking," said she to me. I nodded as best I could. "Has
anything happened?" I asked.

"They have gone," said she. "We whipped them." Her hand again lightly
pressed my forehead.

I heard some one else say, behind me, "But we have nothing in the
world--not even opium."

"True," said another voice, which I recognized as that of Orme; "but
that's his one chance."

"What do you know about surgery?" asked the first voice, which I knew
now was Belknap's.

"More than most doctors," was the answer, with a laugh. Thei