ACROSS THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS, ETC. 229 



of insensibility. How long he remained in this situation, he has 

 no means of ascertaining ; but upon recovering, the place was 

 vacated by all the actors in the bloody scene, except his three dead 

 companions, who were lying stark and stiff where they fell. By 

 considerable exertion, he was enabled to drag himself into a 

 thicket near, for the purpose of concealm'ent, as he rightly con- 

 jectured that their captors would soon return to secure the 

 trophies of their treacherous victory, and bury the corpses. This 

 happened almost immediately after ; the scalps were torn from 

 the heads of the slain, and the mangled bodies removed for inter- 

 ment. After the most dreadful and excrutiating sufferings, as we 

 can well believe, the poor man arrived here, and is doing well 

 under the excellent and skilful care of Doctor Gairdner. I ex- 

 amined most of his wounds yesterday. He is literally covered 

 with them, but one upon the lower part of his face is the most 

 frightful. It was made by a single blow of a tomahawk, the 

 point of which entered the upper lip, just below the nose, cutting 

 entirely through both the upper and lower jaws and chin, and 

 passing deep into the side of the neck, narrowly missing the large 

 jugular vein. He says he perfectly recollects receiving this 

 wound. It was inflicted by a powerful savage, who at the same 

 time tripped him with his foot, accelerating his fall. He also 

 remembers distinctly feeling the Indian's long knife pass five 

 separate times into his body ; of what occurred after this he 

 knows nothing. This is certainly by far the most horrible looking 

 wound I ever saw, rendered so, however, by injudicious treatment 

 and entire want of care in the proper apposition of the sundered 

 parts ; he simply bound it up as well as he could with his 

 handkerchief, and his extreme anguish caused him to forget 

 the necessity of accuracy in this respect. The consequence 

 is, that the lower part of his face is dreadfully contorted, one 

 side being considerably lower than the other. A union by the 



