I could not witness the second attempt, so I put the candle down and fled.
The stout-hearted and confiding girl allowed the second trial, and between the steamboat agent, the Lieutenant, and the red wine, the aching molar was finally extracted.
This was a serious and painful occurrence.

It did not cause any of us to laugh, at the time.

I am sure that Ellen, at least, never saw the comical side of it.
When it was all over, I thanked Fisher, and Jack beamed upon me with: "You see, Mattie, my case of instruments did come in handy, after all." Encouraged by success, he applied for a pannier of medicines, and the Ehrenberg citizens soon regarded him as a healer.

At a certain hour in the morning, the sick ones came to his office, and he dispensed simple drugs to them and was enabled to do much good.

He seemed to have a sort of intuitive knowledge about medicines and performed some miraculous cures, but acquired little or no facility in the use of the language.
I was often called in as interpreter, and with the help of the sign language, and the little I knew of Spanish, we managed to get an idea of the ailments of these poor people.
And so our life flowed on in that desolate spot, by the banks of the Great Colorado.
I rarely went outside the enclosure, except for my bath in the river at daylight, or for some urgent matter.