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CHAPTER IV.

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When Morton recovered consciousness he found he was in a large apartment, the sides formed of heavy logs, and surrounded by American soldiers, who were talking excitedly of the discovery of the dead body of Major Slocum. On seeing their prisoner was restored to his senses, they plied him with questions, in the hope of clearing up the mystery, but he felt so languid that he made no reply, and simply begged for water. On the arrival of two ox-carts, the corpse was lifted into one and the wounded man into the other. On being carried into the air, Morton saw that the building he had been in was a small blockhouse, so placed as to command the road which led to Canada. The jolting of the cart during the short drive was agony to him, and he was thankful when the log shanties of the village of Four Corners came in sight and the rows of tents of the camp. The cart halted at the door of a tavern, where he assumed the general must be, and soon an orderly came out and directed the driver to an outhouse, into which two soldiers carried him. It was a small, low-roofed stable, and in one of the stalls they laid Morton. Closing the door, he was left in darkness, and so remained until it reopened to admit what proved to be a surgeon. He examined the wound, picked it clean, put in a few stitches, bound a wet-bandage round it, and had a pail of water placed near. “You keep that cloth wet,” he said to Morton, “and drink all you please, it will keep down the fever, and you will be well in a week. You have only a flesh-cut; had it been on the inside of the leg instead of the front you would have been a dead man in five minutes.”


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