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 his patient, now that the all-important part of the business was so successfully performed, and nothing remained to be done, but what any child might effect. Indeed, he whispered as much to Monsieur Le Quoi, when he said—

"It was fortunate that the ball was extracted before this Indian came in; but any old woman can dress the wound now. The young man, I hear, lives with John and Natty Bumppo, and it's always best to humour a patient, when it can be done discreetly—I say, discreetly, Mounsheer."

"Certainement," returned the Frenchman; "you seem ver happy, Mister Toad, in your practeece. I should link de elderly lady might ver well finish, vat you so skeelfully begin."

But Richard had, at the bottom, a great deal of veneration for the knowledge of Mohegan, especially in external wounds; and retaining all his desire for a participation in glory, he advanced nigh to the Indian, and said—

"Sago, sago, Mohegan! sago, my good fellow! I am right glad you have come; give me a regular physician, like Doctor Todd, to cut into flesh, and a native to heal the wound. Do you remember, John, the time when I and you set the bone of Natty Bumppo's little finger, after he broke it by falling from the rock, when he was trying to get the partridge down, that fell on the cliffs—I never could tell yet, whether it was I or Natty, who killed that bird: he fired first, and the bird stooped, but then it was rising again, just as I pulled trigger. I should have claimed it, for a certainty, but Natty said the hole was too big for shot, and he fired a single ball from his rifle; but the piece I carried then, didn't scatter, and I have known it to bore a hole through a board, when I've been shooting at the mark, very much like