“How is it?” asked Thad, sympathetically.
“Better than I expected,” the other replied. “Excuse me if I limp around some, boys, but I think it’ll let the liniment work in better, to keep it warmed up. Oh! I’ve a lot to be thankful for, let me tell you. I’m not putting up any sort of kick.”
“Well,” remarked Thad, with a good-natured smile, “all I can say is, that you fellows are working the family doctor to the limit these days. What with stone bruises, snake bites, and getting caught in bear traps, I’m making a big hole in the stock of salve and liniment I fetched along. I suppose it’s going to be my turn next. Perhaps you may have to make a stretcher, and carry me back to camp with a broken leg, or something like that.”
“For goodness sake, I hope not,” exclaimed Allan. “Just imagine the alarm of the other fellows when a procession of limpers came in sight, carrying another. And with our chum Bumpus an unknown quantity too.”
“What if he got lamed up too; wouldn’t that just be the limit?” chuckled Giraffe, who often saw humor where no one else did.
“Anyhow,” spoke up Step Hen, still busy at the fire, and there was an air of satisfaction in his voice, Giraffe instantly noted, “Allan belongs in my class.”
“How’s that?” instantly demanded the jealous Giraffe.
“Well! Just use your eyes, and you won’t need to ask so many foolish questions. Don’t you see how he limps when he puts that old right leg down? Well, it was my right one that got the snake bite. Allan and me make up the right leg brigade. You’ll just have to herd by yourself, Giraffe—anyhow till somebody else takes a notion to drop in the fire, or cut his toe with the wood axe, or somethin’ like that.”
Thad and Allan laughed at the comical way in which the peculiar condition of things was described by Step Hen.
“Well,” said the scoutmaster, “let’s hope that won’t happen. Better Giraffe should stay in a class all by himself to the end of the chapter, than another fellow meet with a serious accident. We’ve got cripples enough.”