"I'm afraid gramfer, here, is rather badly hurt," gasped Phil, as he and Dick lifted the insensible form of the Peruvian to the top of the low bank. "Evidently he has been dashed against a rock and stunned, if not worse," he continued, pointing to a very ugly jagged wound in the right temple, from which the blood was welling pretty freely. "I noticed, as I drove past, that you had saved the canoe. Do you think you could manage to go back and fetch her down, Dick? My case of medicaments is in her--if the thwart to which it was lashed has not gone adrift--and I should be very glad to have it just now. Dost thou mind; or art too tired?" "Not a bit of it," answered Dick. "Of course I'll go, with pleasure. And you will be glad to hear that, so far at least as I could see, the craft is not damaged at all. But of course her paddles are lost, except the one that gramfer, there, has stuck to so tenaciously, so I must borrow it from him." And he stooped down and, with some difficulty, loosened the grip of the unconscious man's hand on the steering paddle, which he had, no doubt unconsciously, retained in his grip ever since the capsize. "I'll be back as quickly as possible," concluded Dick, as he struck off into the bush that, just there, bordered the river. He returned again in about half an hour, with the canoe intact, nothing having been lost but the paddles, which were the only articles that happened to have been loose in her when she capsized. With quick fingers he cast loose the small medicine case which Phil had taken ashore with him on the occasion of the ill-fated landing at Cartagena, and which he had carried about with him ever since, carefully enwrapped, like their powder horns, in portions of their shirts liberally smeared with caoutchouc juice to exclude all moisture. Poor old Vilcamapata was still insensible when Dick returned, and Phil was looking exceedingly anxious about him; but the production of the medicine case soon altered matters; and a few minutes later the old man was sitting up and looking about him dazedly. At first he seemed not to recognise Phil or Dick, or to be able to remember what had happened; but gradually it all came back to him; and when Phil asked him how he felt he replied that he was fatigued and desired to sleep. Accordingly, the young medico bathed the wound with water from the river, applied some healing ointment to it, bound it up with what remained of their shirts; then they made up a temporary couch for the sufferer under the shadow of a bush, and left him to sleep as long as he would, while Dick went off in search of game, and Phil proceeded to carve a pair of new paddles and to cut a couple of new poles.