The girl now kept cloths wrung from the hot water on my neck. I thanked
them all as best I could. "I say, you men," remarked Mandy McGovern,
coming up with a cob-stoppered flask in her hand, half filled with a
pale yellow-white fluid, "ain't it about time for some of that thar
anarthestic I heerd you all talking about a while ago?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Orme. "The stitching hurts about as much as
anything. Auberry, can't you find me a bit of sinew somewhere, and
perhaps a needle of some sort?"
CHAPTER XIX
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
A vast dizziness and a throbbing of the head remained after they were
quite done with me, but something of this left me when finally I sat
leaning back against the wagon body and looked about me. There were
straight, motionless figures lying under the blankets in the shade, and
under other blankets were men who writhed and moaned. Belknap passed
about the place, graver and apparently years older than at the beginning
of this, his first experience in the field. He put out burial parties at
once. A few of the Sioux, including the one on whom Andrew Jackson
McGovern had vented his new-found spleen, were covered scantily where
they lay.
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