“The old doc’s down to his office in the tin shack beyant the hotel,” said one. “I seen him not an hour ago.”
“Let’s take your father to the hotel, Min,” Ruth said. “These men will help us, I know. So will Tom Cameron. We will have the doctor look after your father.”
“The old doc can dope him a-plenty, I reckon,” said Bob.
“Sure we’ll help you,” said the rough fellows, who were not really hard-hearted after all.
“I dunno’s they’ll let him into the hotel,” Min said.
“Yes they will. We’ll pay for his room and you and the doctor can look out for him,” Ruth declared.
“You are good and helpful, Ruth Fielding,” said Miss Cullam, coming forward, much as she despised the condition of the man, Peters. “How terrible! But one must be sorry for that poor girl.”
“And Min has pluck all right!” cried Jennie Stone, admiringly. “We must help her.”
They were all agreed in this. Even Rebecca and Miss Cullam, who both shrank from the coarseness of the men and the roughness of Min and her father, commiserated the man’s misfortune and were sorry for Min’s strait.
Tom assisted in leading the wildly-talking Peters to the hotel. Ruth and Miss Cullam hurried on in advance to engage a room for the man whom they assured the proprietor was really ill. Min, meanwhile, went in search of the camp’s medical practitioner.