CHAPTER IV
A big man, with a broad face and yellow beard, came in. This was Max Hicsh, the mine manager, and sometime medical student of Göttingen.
"Vell, Mr. McKeel, how vas you now?" he said, in his bustling way. Seeing Lanky, breathing hard, on the sofa, he added, "Mine Gott! vat is dis?"
McKeel told him, in a few words, what had been done, and that he had successfully injected the ammonia.
"Dat is good, mine friend! dat is good. You haf safe his life."
"I thocht," said McKeel, "that it wad be mair satisfactory to hae a medical man here to gae the poor fallow every chance."
Max drew up his coat sleeves, turned back his shirt cuffs, gave a tug at his collar, put one hand over Lanky's heart and the other on his pulse. He wore a serious look, then a puzzled one: his lip curled, and a smile danced over his face.
"Heart goot; ferry goot! poolse goot; ferry goot!! preething goot; ferry goot!!!"
McKeel jumped up and skipped about, snapping his fingers. He was jubilant at the effect of the ammonia.
"What de ye think o' the heap-odermic injection o' ammonia noo, Daavid? I'll write to the Argus aboot this won'erfu' escape frae the grave, or the bottomless pit for that maiter. Lanky may tak' a thocht an' mend frae the error o' his ways after this meeracle."