"Been expecting that," said McKay. "Might loosen that ligature now--just a few seconds.... Tighten it! All right." Alter watching the sick man a little longer he added: "Now I'm going to eat and smoke. Feel like taking a drink, too, but guess I won't. The Indian will pull through now, I think." When he had returned to the Indian hut with pipe aglow, Knowlton asked him, "Now tell us how you doped out this cure." "Combination of various things. Salt is a partial antidote to venom in the blood, and I got it into him in three ways--by mouth absorption, by the stomach, and by the salt poultice, which drew out some of the poison from the forearm and helped neutralize what remained. Ripping his arm of course let out a lot of bad blood. Ligature above the elbow stopped most of the rest--though some sneaked past that point, I'm pretty sure. "Big thing, though, was the deep breathing. Remember I told you about the experiments that killed mules and an ox? Another experiment was this--opening the windpipe of a poisoned mule after the heart stopped, inserting a pair of bellows, and starting artificial respiration. After four hours of this the mule came to life and stayed alive--though he was a wreck for a year afterward. "I just put all these together, made the Indian do his own breathing--and here he is. I'm going to sit up awhile longer and watch him, but the critical period is over. You chaps can turn in." But none turned in until midnight, when no doubt remained that Lourenço's prophecy would come true--that Yuara would live to draw bow again. Then, when the slashed arm had been thoroughly cleansed and bound, Lourenço spoke once more to the savages. "The medicine of the wise white man and the air spirits have saved Yuara from the death demon. Yuara has fought as a man of his tribe should fight, and so has lived when he would have died. To-morrow Yuara shall once more see his people, the first man of the Mayorunas to come back from the death of poison. And he and his comrades shall tell of the white man's wisdom, without which he now would lie cold on the ground." "So shall it be," Yuara himself faintly answered. "Yuara, son of Rana, second chief of the men of Suba, will not forget." "_Por Deus!_" exclaimed Lourenço. "Comrades, this man is no common hunter, but son of a subchief. Capitao, you have done good work to-day." CHAPTER XV. THE CANNIBALS