"By smoke!" muttered Jimmy, "if yer ain't hokey-pokey. But I reckon I
ain't dead, nohow."
With this he lifted the other hand, that had been stretched beneath his
head, and was also numb with cramp and cold, and it was full of blood.
"Well," said Jimmy, "that feller did hit me; but, if he'll lend me his
pistol, I'll fire a straighter slug than his'n. I wonder where it is."
Feeling around his head, the captain came to a raw spot, the touch of
which gave him acute pain, and made the blood flow freshly as he
withdrew his hand, and he could just speak the words, "Water, or I'll--"
when he swooned away.
The sun was up and shining cheerily in the tree-tops as Phoebus, who
was its name-bearer, recovered his senses again, and he bathed his face,
still lying down, and tore a piece of his raiment off for a bandage,
and, by the mirror of a still, green pool of water, examined his wound,
which was in the fleshy part of his cheek--a little groove or gutter,
now choked with almost dried blood, where the ball had ploughed a line.
It had probably struck a bone, but had not broken it, and this had
stunned him.
"I was so ugly before that Ellenory wouldn't more than half look at me,"
Jimmy mused, "an' now, I 'spect, she'll never kiss that air cheek."
He then bandaged his cheek roughly, sitting up, and took a survey of the
scenery.
The river was here a full quarter of a mile wide, on the opposite shore
bluffy, and in places bold, but, on the side where Phoebus had drifted
with the tide, clutching his old scow with mortal grip, there extended a
point of level woods and marsh or "cripple," as if by the action of some
back-water, and this low ground appeared to have a considerable area,
and was nowhere tilled or fenced, or gave any signs of being visited.
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