832 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
just reach me; he would occasionally toss up his arms in 
exultation, or jump into the air, striking his heels together 
twice or thrice e’er he came down, and make sundry other 
antics, to the evident astonishment of his horse, who would 
suddenly jerk backwards, while Tom, in total unconsciousness, 
would tug away at the lariat, uttering some comical expletive, 
until he got him started again, and then go on rejoicing ! 
I did not mention the circumstance to the woman, having 
determined that she and Tom might settle the affair after 
their own fashion. For several days I could see nothing 
of him, though the wood and water necessary for us was 
regularly deposited at the door. The woman, or myself as 
it happened, would take it in; and, as she made no comment 
upon the obvious singularity of the circumstance, I did not, 
of course, allude to it. Indeed, the terms of our intercourse 
were so monosyllabic that I could only speak to her concern- 
ing matters of plain necessity. Her wound had to be cared 
for, but most of all that of the husband! She sometimes 
remembered to cook, but when she did not do so I attended 
to that necessary duty myself. My friend had not returned 
as I expected, nor had we heard a word from him as yet. 
The husband grew better with unexpected rapidity, and 
when he finally was able, with slight assistance, to resume 
his accustomed chair, it was a grand occasion with us; for 
the woman had evidently clung with a pertinacity, which was 
still afraid to precipitate its despair, to the hope that when 
he had recovered the use of his constitutional strength suffi- 
ciently to be able to use his limbs for locomotion, the faculty 
of speech would return to him—therefore she had applied 
herself to the restoration of his physique exclusively, and had, 
with an obvious feeling of trepidation, avoided calling out 
from him the slighest attempt at using his voice. Now came 
the shock in full! We had seated him in the chair, and he 
glanced around with a beaming look upon the instruments of 
his labor. He even picked them up, such as were near him, 
