e to her side and spoke low with the quiet voice of
assurance:

"No harm will come to the girl. I have many times talked with this man
as he worked in the timber. His heart is good--and his lips do not lie.
I, who have looked into his eyes, have spoken. And, that you shall know
my words are true, if harm befall the girl at the hand of the white
_chechako_, with this knife shall you kill me as I sleep."

He withdrew a long, keen blade from its sheath and handed it to the
squaw, who took it.

"And not only you will I kill, but him also," she answered, testing its
edge upon her thumb. "For the moon has spoken, and blood will flow.
Last night, in the wet red moon, I saw it--dripping tears of
blood--twelve, besides one small one, and they were swallowed up in the
mist of the river. I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the
chief, who know the signs, have spoken.

"Before the full of the thirteenth moon blood will flow upon the bank
of the river. But whose blood I know not, for a great cloud came and
covered the face of the moon, and when it was gone the tears of blood
were no more and the mist had returned to the river--and the meaning of
this I know not."

She ceased speaking abruptly at a sound from the tepee as the girl
emerged and stepped quickly to the fire.

"I am glad you have come," said Jeanne hurriedly to her brother. "You,
who are skilled in the mending of bones. The man's leg is broken; it is
swollen and gives him much pain."

Jacques followed her into the tepee and, after a careful examination,
removed the unconscious man.

The setting of the bones required no small amount of labor and
ingenuity. Carmody was placed between two trees, to one of which his
body was firmly bound at the shoulders.

A portion of the bark was removed from the other tree and the smooth
surface rubbed with fat. Around this was passed a stout line, one end
of which was made fast to the injured leg at the ankle.

A trimmed sapling served as a capstan bar, against which the two women
threw their weight, while Jacques fitted the bone ends neatly together
and applied the splints.

The Indians, schooled in the treatment of wounds and broken bones, were
helpless as babes before the ravages of the dreaded pneumonia which
racked the great body of the sick man.

Bill Carmody's recollection of the following days was confined to a
hopeless confusion of distorted brain pictures in which the beautiful
face of the girl, the rep