There was no one in the party who knew anything of surgery.

But they had a razor, a handsaw and a bar of iron.
It shows the estimation in which the firm, gentle, and yet almost womanly Kit Carson was held, that he was chosen to perform the operation.

Two others were to assist him.

The sufferer took his seat, and was held firmly, that in his anguish his struggles might not interfere with the progress of the knife.

This boy of but eighteen years then, with great apparent coolness, undertook this formidable act of surgery.
He bound a ligature around the arm very tightly, to arrest, as far as possible the flow of blood.