Oowikapun | Page 3

the bone was fractured or the flesh torn. If, when accidents occur, the injuries are not considered very desperate, a little camp is improvised and with a day or two of rest, with some simple remedies from nature's great storehouse--the forest--a cure is quickly effected. If a leg or arm is broken, a stretcher of young saplings is skillfully prepared, interwoven with broad bands of soft bark, and on this elastic, easy couch the wounded man is rapidly carried to his distant wigwam by his companions.
When there are but two persons, and an accident happens to one of them, two young trees that are tough and elastic are used. Then tops of small branches are allowed to remain, and very much diminish the jolting caused by the inequalities of the ground. No carriage spring ever more successfully accomplished its purpose. A couple of cross bars preserve the saplings in position, and the bark of some varieties of shrubs or trees cut into bands and joined to either side forms a comfortable couch. In this way an injured man has often been dragged many miles by his companion, and in some instances it has been found on his arrival at his forest home that the fractured bones were uniting, and soon the limb was whole again.
With these healthy, simple children of the forest wounds heal with great rapidity and fractured bones soon unite. This reparative power of the Indians when injured is only paralleled by the wonderful stoicism with which they bear injuries, and at times inflict upon themselves the severest torture. With flints as substitutes for lances, they will cut open the largest abscesses to the very bone. They will amputate limbs with their hunting knives, checking the haemorrhage with red-hot stones as was done long years ago by the surgeons of Europe.
With marvellous nerve many a wounded hunter or warrior has been known to amputate his own limb, or sew up with sinew the gaping wounds received in conflict with the hostile foe or savage beast. They were cognisant of the value, and extensively used warm fomentations. If rheumatism or other kindred diseases assailed them, the Turkish bath in a very simple form was often used. Sometimes a close tent of deerskins served the purpose. The patient was put in a little tent where, in a hollow under him, heated stones were placed, over which water was thrown until the confined air was heated to the required temperature and saturated with the steam.
Oowikapun had fortunately broken no bones in his battle with the savage wolf, but he knew that his wounds were dangerous. Some of them were so situated in his arm that he could not reach them with his mouth in order that he might suck out the poisonous saliva of the wolf that he feared might be in them, and it now being in the depth of winter, he could not obtain the medicinal herbs which the Indians use as poultices for dangerous wounds of this description.
While brooding over his misfortune he suddenly remembered the snowshoe tracks of the stranger, and at once resolved to try and find his lodge, and secure help. To decide was to act. The few preparations necessary were soon made, and taking the most direct route to the spot where he had last seen the trail of the stranger he was soon in it. He was uncertain at first whether to go backward or forward on it in order to reach the wigwam, for he had not the remotest idea whether these tracks led to it or from it. But his native shrewdness came into play to solve the question. First he noticed from the way the shoes sunk in the snow that the man was carrying a heavy load; next he observed that the tracks were not like those of a hunter going out from his home, moving about cautiously locking for game, but were rather those of a man well loaded from a successful hunt, and pushing on straight for home with his burden. Quickly had he read these things and arrived at his conclusions; so he resolved to go on with the trail, and he was not disappointed. He had travelled only a few miles, ere in a pleasant grove of balsam trees, on the borders of a little ice-covered lake, he discovered, by the ascending smoke from the top, the wigwam of his unknown friend.
Without hesitancy he marched up to it, and lifting the large moose skin which served as its only door, he stooped down and entered in. A pleasant fire was burning on the ground in the centre, and partly circled around it was the Indian family. As though Oowikapun had been long looked for as an expected, honoured guest, he was cordially welcomed in quiet