CHAPTER XVII.
FIRST AID.
"It is strange we haven't seen a single snake," said one of the visitinggirls.
"Thank goodness for it!" exclaimed another. "I was almost afraid to comecamping because of snakes."
"We haven't seen any around the camp at all," Douglas assured them.
Bill and Lewis exchanged sly glances, for the truth of the matter wasthey had killed several in the early days when they were breaking groundfor the pavilion--had killed and kept mum on the subject.
"Girls are just as afraid of dead snakes as alive ones, so let's keepdark about them," Lewis had said, and they had also sworn Josh tosecrecy.
"There is one thing to be remembered about snakes," said Dr. Wright,"most snakes, at least, that they are as afraid of you as you are ofthem and they are seldom the aggressors; that is, they do not considerthemselves so. They strike when they think that you have encroached ontheir trail. If you look carefully where you walk, there is no dangerever of being bitten by a snake, and very few snakes will comedeliberately where you are. I will wager anything that Josh here hasnever stepped on a snake."
"We uns done it onct but Maw lambasted we uns with a black snake whipfer not lookin' whar we uns trod, so's ain't never had no accidentsince. Maw, she said if the har of a dog was good fer the bite, that ablack snake whip would jest about cure we uns fer most gittin' bit by arattler."
"Oh, he didn't bite you, then?"
"Naw, 'cause we uns war jes up from the measles an' Maw had put some oleboots on we uns. Maw says that the best cure for snake bite is to havethe measles an' wear ole boots so you uns don't git bit."
"Very sound reasoning," laughed Dr. Wright. "In the mountains, topboots or leggins would cure all snake bites."
"Helen wouldn't wear her leggins," declared Bobby, "'cause she said youcouldn't come attorney-generaling her about her clothes, and mustarddon't help cold gravy none, anyhow."
"Oh, Bobby!" gasped Helen.
"So it won't, Bobby," said Dr. Wright, somewhat mystified as to thehidden meaning of mustard and cold gravy but feeling sure that there wassome significance in it. He did not interpret it as did Mrs. Bardell thecryptic notes from Mr. Pickwick concerning tomato sauce as being lovemessages, but well knew that they were more nearly proofs of dislike ifnot hate from Helen.
"Nothing can help cold gravy in my opinion," drawled Nan, "not evenheating it up."
"How about cold shoulders?" asked the doctor.
"Or icy mitts?"
"Or glacial reserve?"
"Or chilling silence?" Suggestions from different ones of thepicnickers.
"What will melt frigid replies?"
"Or frozen glances?"
"Hot air!" from Bill. "Melt anything." And then he gave a laugh at hisown wit that bid fair to dislodge the great rock so delicately balancedin the Devil's Gorge.
"Let's go explore the Devil's Gorge now!" suggested Helen, springingto her feet, forgetting all about her fatigue, only thankful forthe foolishness that had been started by Nan to hide her sister'sembarrassment. What would Dr. Wright think of her? He must haveunderstood very well what Bobby meant by attorney-generaling, if themustard and cold gravy was a mystery.
The girls held back when they looked down the frightful abyss so wellnamed, but the spinster educators went on, determined to get geologicalspecimens if they died for it, and Helen, in a spirit of bravado, leapedahead of the exploring party and sprang down the rocks like a veritablemountain goat. Her cheeks were still glowing over the remarks of thatenfant terrible, Bobby.
"Be careful, Helen!" called Lewis Somerville, who had constitutedhimself squire of spinsters and was helping those intrepid geologistsdown the slippery rocks. Helen tossed her head at her cousin and went onin her mad descent, swinging from rock to rock with the occasional helpof a scrub oak that had somehow gained foothold on the barren boulders.
"Look out for snakes, Helen!" cried Douglas, who had turned back withthe rest of the party.
But Helen heeded nothing and seemed bent on reaching the lowest point ofthe chasm. It flashed across her mind that she was a little like theEnglishman. He was trying to escape from the buzzing and roaring in hishead while she was in a mad race with her conscience. Why should she beso unkind and sharp with Dr. Wright? She didn't know.
She could hear the people above talking and their voices seemed thin andfar away, so deep had she penetrated into the gorge.
"Jest a leetle below whar Miss Helen is standing was whar they picked upthe Englishman," she could hear Josh's peculiar mountain voice recitebefore the party moved off back toward the temporary camp where theyhad had luncheon. The ladies on science bent, their squire, Dr. Wrightand she were the only explorers left.
"Right down there is where that poor man fell," she said to herself. "Idon't believe it was suicide, either," and then she blushed for agreeingwith Dr. Wright. "But it would be so easy to fall from any of theseslippery crags. He might have been on the opposite cliff, which iscertainly a precarious spot, and vertigo might have attacked him, and hemight have gone over backwards, clutching at the scrub oaks as he fell,and gone down, down--why, what is that hanging in the tree there?"
Something was certainly caught in the branches of a dwarf tree thatclung to the unfriendly rocks with determined roots--something thatlooked like a wallet, but she could not be sure.
"Lewis!" she called, but Lewis was so taken up with hanging by his toesand reaching for a particularly rare specimen of fern that one of thedames wanted for her collection, that he did not hear her calling.
"Will I do?" asked Dr. Wright from somewhere above her.
"Oh, no, I thank you. I don't want anything." And then the buzzingconscience started up and she said more cordially, "I see somethinghanging in a scrub oak over there that I am going to get."
"Let me get it for you," and the young doctor started to swing himselfdown the cliff to the ledge where Helen was standing.
Before he reached her, however, she had determined to make the attemptherself. It was not much of a jump for one as athletic as Helen. It wasseveral feet below where she was standing and the gorge narrowed at thatpoint, making little more than a step across to the opposite ledge.
She gave a flying leap and landed safely, clutching the scrub oak inwhose branches the wallet was lodged. Dr. Wright reached the spot whereshe had been standing just as she touched the rock below. He could nothelp admiring her grace and athletic figure as she made the jump,although his heart was sore at her persistent unkindness to him. He didnot want to find her attractive and determined to let this visit to thecamp be his last. She seemed to think that he had courted the power ofattorney that had been thrust upon him, or why should she have saidwhatever she had said that had caused Bobby's prattling? It wasthoroughly ungenerous of her and unkind and he for one was not going toplace himself in a position to have to endure it. The other members ofthe family were so very nice to him that he did not relish letting thesummer go by without visiting them again--and Bobby--dear little shover.He could but confess, however, that their kindness was outweighed in hisheart by Helen's unkindness, and he determined to stay away.
A second after Helen had made her triumphant leap, she gave a sharp cry.Dr. Wright started toward her and his keen gaze saw an ugly snakegliding away across the rocks, disappearing in a crevice.
"My God, Helen! Did he bite you?" No bitterness now was in the youngman's heart as he jumped the chasm and landed by Helen's side, just asshe sank trembling to the ground.
She said afterwards it was not because it hurt so much, only for amoment was the pain intense, but she felt a kind of horror as though thepoison had penetrated her very soul. She was filled with fear that couldonly have been equalled by Susan's dread of hants.
"Where is it?" the doctor questioned with a voice of such sympathy andtenderness that Helen's thoughts went back to a time in her childhoodwhen she had her tonsils removed. When she came from under theanesthetic, her father was holding her hand and he spoke to her in justs
uch a tone.
"My heel! Just above the shoe!" she gasped.
"Take off your shoe and stocking as quick as you can."
She obeyed without question and Dr. Wright, with a deftness surprisingin a man, twisted a handkerchief around her ankle just above theinjured spot, and so tightly did he bind it, that it was all Helencould do to keep from crying out.
"I know it hurts, but we have to bear it."
His "we" made her feel in some way that it hurt him, too. But what washe doing? Without a word he had knelt and had his mouth to the wound andwas sucking out the poison.
Helen hid her face in her hands. It took only a moment and then the kindvoice said: "Now we have a little more to stand." He quickly opened hisminiature case and, handing her a tiny phial, told her to take two ofthe pellets, which she did, while he got out a small hard alcohol lampand lighted it. Then, producing the proper instruments from thewonderful case, he proceeded to cauterize the wound. Helen gritted herteeth and made not one murmur.
"Your father's own daughter," was all he said as he put up hisinstruments, but that was as music in the ears of Helen. He thenproduced a small bottle from another pocket and washed out his own mouthwith a thoroughness that explained his exceedingly perfect teeth.
"The wound is a very slight one and I truly believe you will haveabsolutely no trouble, but you must take every precaution and be veryquiet for a day or so. Lewis and I together will carry you up toJosephus. A snake bite can be of little consequence if it is taken holdof immediately. Can you stand the ligature a little tighter?"
"Ye--s!"
"Ah, I see it is tight enough. You can put your stocking on again, butfirst I must make assurance doubly sure and cut out a great hole wherethe rascal attacked you. There might be poison in it." He deftlybandaged the injured ankle with a roll of gauze he produced from yetanother pocket, first treating the wound with iodine. "I wish I had somepermanganate of potash but I fancy the work is already done and theiodine will be all right. He got you on the Achilles tendon. I wonder ifit is your only vulnerable spot, too."
"No, it is not. I am full of vulnerable spots! Oh, Dr. Wright, I am notnearly so mean as I seem. I am so sorry I was so rude to you--I--I amgoing to be better. I am sorry I did not wear the leggins and I am sorryI did not look where I was stepping--I am sorry I jumped over the gorgewhen I saw you coming. I just did it to irritate you. I am sorry to havecaused you all this trouble and I am so grateful to you that I canhardly----" but here Helen actually blubbered, something that she neverdid.
"Why, you poor little girl! I haven't a doubt that I have been as horridas you have thought I was and dictatorial and interfering and mean--andeverything. Please forgive me and suppose we just be the good friendsthat somehow I believe we were cut out to be, you and Bobby and I;" andhe took the girl's hand in his and patted it gently while she wept on.
"Can't you stop crying, honey?"
"I be--be--believe I could if I had a handkerchief, but I've lost mine."
"And mine is made into a ligature. Would a few yards of gauze help any?"And then they both laughed while he unwound the gauze.
All of this had taken but a few minutes and Lewis and the scientificdevotees had no idea that anything so terrifying as a snake bite wasgoing on. They came in view just as Helen dried her eyes on the fewyards of gauze.
"Hello! What's up?"
"Oh, Lewis, a snake bit me!"
"Gee! A rattler?"
Dr. Wright held up a warning finger behind Helen's back.
"He got out of the way so fast we did not get a good look at him, but itis not a bad bite, and everything has been done that could be done, andnow Miss Helen is going to take one more of these little green pelletsand you and I are going to carry her up to Josephus."
The ladies were very solicitous and anxious to do anything in theirpower, but they were calm and quiet and Helen thanked her stars that therest of the party had gone back and not ventured so far into the gorge.
"It would have been awful to have them buzzing all around me, yellingand screaming and squealing," she said to herself, and then the thoughtcame to her of the horror all the girls had of snakes and theconsternation her accident would cause among the week-enders. But whyneed they know? It was her own fault that she had been bitten, and sucha thing need never happen again if only proper precautions were taken,such as leggins and looking where you stepped and keeping away from theDevil's Gorge, where snakes were sure to abound.
"Dr. Wright, do you think it would be possible to keep this thingperfectly quiet? I am so afraid that my being bitten by a snake wouldgive our camp such a bad name that it would be a failure from now on."
"Of course it could be kept quiet. What do you think, Somerville?"
"Me! Why, I'm game to keep my mouth shut."
"We agree with you perfectly, Miss Carter, and will say nothing at allin regard to the accident," the spinsters assured her, and they lookedso kind and sensible that Helen's heart was warmed to them and shewondered that she had not noticed before what very intelligent, goodfaces both of them had.
"All right," said Dr. Wright, "it is perfectly ethical for a physicianto keep his patient's malady to himself. Miss Helen Carter is sufferingfrom an injury to her ankle. If the inquisitive choose to make of it asprain it is their own affair. Now, Lewis, how shall we manage? It willbe pretty awkward for us to make a basket of our hands going up thiscliff," and with that he stooped and picked Helen up in his arms, andwith no more exertion than if she had been Bobby, he made his way up themountain.
"Would it hurt me to walk? I can't bear to be so much trouble."
"It is best to keep very quiet. I am pretty sure there is going to be notrouble, but I must have you behave just exactly as though there was."
"Lewis, you get Douglas off by herself and let her know what it was, butwait until we are back in camp. Tell her so she won't be scared, and lether know it is all right before you let her know what it is."
"I believe the rattlesnake is called crotalus horridus," said one of thewise ladies.
Dr. Wright wished she would stop talking about snakes and especiallyrattlers, as he wanted to get Helen's mind off the terrifyingoccurrence.
"We are not sure this was a rattlesnake," he said.
"I think it was," she whispered to him. "I remember as I jumped I heardsomething that sounded like dry leaves." Did the young man hold hercloser to him or was it just a fancy on her part?
"It knocks me all up to think about it," he muttered. "I am glad, soglad I followed you."
"I am, too!"
A wave of crimson flooded the young man's face. He didn't know why, buthis blood was singing in his veins and his breath came quickly. If ithad not been for the presence of the respectable spinsters, he was surehe would have had to kiss that piquant face so close to his.
"Come on, Doc, my time now to take up the white man's burden. Helen isno featherweight and you are red in the face and panting from carryingher this far."
"Not a bit of it!" and Dr. Wright held on to his burden while Lewisendeavored to relieve him.
"Well, let's cut the baby in two, like my Aunt's favorite character inhistory."
"If I give up, it will be for the same reason the woman in the Bibledid," laughed Dr. Wright. "You remember it was the woman who had theright who gave up?"
The spinsters were still talking about the habits and customs of thehorridus crotalus.
"They know so much and keep piling on so much more, I fancy if theydidn't give out some of their learning, they would bust," whisperedLewis, as he grasped his cousin in a bear hug and started to finish thejourney to the temporary camp.
"Do you remember a limerick, I think Oliver Hereford's?" asked Helen:
"'There was once a homo teetotalus Who stepped on a horridus crotalus, "Hic!" clavit in pain, "I've got 'em again!" Ejacit this homo teetotalus.'"