She said little Martha had been very sick since we had been gone, and that for many days they had expected her to die.

They had no medicine to relieve her and the best they could do was to select the best of the ox meat, and make a little soup of it and feed her, they had watched her carefully for many days and nights, expecting they would have to part with her any time and bury her little body in the sands.

Sometimes it seemed as if her breath would stop, but they had never failed in their attentions, and were at last rewarded by seeing her improve slowly, and even to relish a little food, so that if no relapse set in they had hopes to bring her through.
They brought the little one and showed her to me, and she seemed so different from what she was when we went away.

Then she could run about camp climb out and in the wagons, and move about so spry that she reminded one of a quail.

Now she was strangely misshapen.