Dorthe smiled sympathetically.  His speech and general appearance struck a long-dormant chord; but in her mind was no recognition of him.

He fell asleep suddenly and profoundly.  As Dorthe watched, she gradually recalled the appearance of the old who had lain screaming on the ground drawing up their cramped limbs.  She also recalled the remedy.  Not far from the edge of the forest was a line of temascals, excavations covered with mud huts, into which her people had gone for every ill.  She ran to one, and made a large fire within; the smoke escaped through an aperture in the roof.  Then she returned, and, taking the emaciated figure in her arms, bore him to the hut and placed him in the corner farthest from the fire.  She went out and closed the door, but thrust her head in from time to time.  He did not awaken for an hour.  When he did, he thought he had entered upon the fiery sequel of unfaith.  The sweat was pouring from his body.  The atmosphere could only be that of the nether world.  As his brain cleared he understood, and made no effort to escape:  he knew the virtues of the temascal.  As the intense heat sapped his remaining vitality he sank into lethargy.  He was aroused by the shock of cold water, and opened his eyes to find himself struggling in the creek, Dorthe holding him down with firm arms.  After a moment she carried him back to the plain and laid him in the sun to dry.  His rags still clung to him.  She regarded them with disfavour, and fetched the Chief’s discarded plumage.  As soon as he could summon strength he tottered into the forest and made his toilet.  As he was a foot and a half taller than the Chief had been, he determined to add a flounce as soon as his health would permit.  Dorthe, however, looked approval when he emerged, and set a bowl of steaming soup before him.

He took the temascal twice again, and at the end of a week the drastic cure had routed his rheumatism.  Although far from strong, he felt twenty years younger.  His manhood returned, and with it his man’s vanity.  He did not like the appearance of his reflected image in the still pools of the wood.  The long beard and head locks smote him sorely.  He disliked the idea of being a fright, even though Dorthe had no standards of comparison; but his razors were at the bottom of the sea.

After much excogitation he arrived at a solution.  One day, when Dorthe was on the other side of the mountain shooting birds,—­she would kill none of her friends in the fern forest,—­he tore dried palm leaves into strips, and setting fire to them singed his hair and beard to the roots.  It was a long and tedious task.  When it was finished the pool told him that his chin and head were like unto a stubbled field.  But he was young and well-looking once more.

He went out and confronted Dorthe.  She dropped her birds, her bow and arrow, and stared at him.  Then he saw recognition leap to her eyes; but this time no fear.  He was far from being the gorgeous apparition of many moons ago.  And, so quickly does solitude forge its links, she smiled brightly, approvingly, and he experienced a glow of content.