Spahwat was a good hunter, and as soon as he saw the rubbing-tree on the
Upper Meteetsee he knew that he was on the range of a big Grizzly. He
bushwhacked the whole valley, and spent many days before he found a
chance to shoot; then Wahb got a stinging flesh-wound in the shoulder.
He growled horribly, but it had seemed to take the fight out of him; he
scrambled up the valley and over the lower hills till he reached a quiet
haunt, where he lay down.
[Illustration]
His knowledge of healing was wholly instinctive. He licked the wound and
all around it, and sought to be quiet. The licking removed the dirt, and
by massage reduced the inflammation, and it plastered the hair down as a
sort of dressing over the wound to keep out the air, dirt, and microbes.
There could be no better treatment.
But the Indian was on his trail. Before long the smell warned Wahb that
a foe was coming, so he quietly climbed farther up the mountain to
another resting-place. But again he sensed the Indian's approach, and
made off. Several times this happened, and at length there was a second
shot and another galling wound. Wahb was furious now. There was nothing
that really frightened him but that horrible odor of man, iron, and
guns, that he remembered from the day when he lost his Mother; but now
all fear of these left him. He heaved painfully up the mountain again,
and along under a six-foot ledge, then up and back to the top of the
bank, where he lay flat.
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