“My leg hurts something awful, do you expect that I have broken it?” he demanded; and now there was a whine in his voice as if he was purposely calling attention to his sufferings in order to draw Pam’s notice from things he did not want to have discussed just then.
“Are you hurt?” she asked in quick sympathy. She had not noticed his position before.
“It is either a sprain or a break,” put in Jack. “The poor kid was hurt when he came sailing down-stream on the table. Amanda saw him slipping along past Mrs. Buckle’s house, and she came screaming to warn me, for he shouted to her that he was hurt and could not help himself. I came as fast as I could, and it was lucky I did, for I was only just in time to pull you out.”
“There is the truck!” exclaimed Pam, waving her arm towards the truck, which had been left to carry the rugs back to the house. “We can put him on that and wheel him to the house. Then you must go for the Doctor, Jack. Perhaps Mrs. Buckle will lend you the horse; you can stick on its back if you try hard enough.”
“Don is at Mrs. Buckle’s, helping to make a dam to keep the water out; he will go for the Doctor,” said Jack. Then Pam suddenly remembered what she had heard Reggie saying when she lay in her half-swoon, and she blushed right up to the roots of her hair. It was so absurd for people to put sentimental constructions on every little appearance of friendship between Don and herself; he was her very good friend, just as Sophy was, and that was all. It was stupid to blush like a little schoolgirl! Pam was painfully conscious of a quizzical look from Jack as he brought the truck to the place where Reggie was sitting, and then of course she blushed harder than ever.
Reggie was lifted on to the truck with considerable difficulty. He might be thin and small to look at, but it took all the strength of Pam and Jack to lift him, while his moans and groans when they touched him made Pam feel so bad that she did not know how to bear it. The task of pulling the truck across the sodden field was heavy, too. She and Jack pressed forward shoulder to shoulder, and she had a queer spent feeling as if she would give up the next moment and slip to the ground.
“What makes the kid so certain that Grandfather had no hand in hurting Sam Buckle?” asked Jack. His head was close to hers as they drew the heavy truck, and they could talk in low tones without any danger of Reggie hearing what they had to say.
“It is the time that settles it,” replied Pam. “It would take Reggie nearly an hour to go from Ripple to the schoolhouse, though he might do it in three-quarters if he ran all the way. That would make it half-past one when he left Ripple in a hurry, because Grandfather set the dog at him. It was just one when Sam Buckle left his home that day, and he had not been gone ten minutes by the clock when Mrs. Buckle remembered he had taken the keys with him, and that she would want them when the man from the stores came with the week’s groceries. It would take her from twenty minutes to half an hour to walk to our boundary from her house, which would bring her to the place about the time that Reggie was starting away from Ripple. When she got to the fence she found her husband lying on the ground unconscious, and so fearfully battered that at first she thought he must be dead. Grandfather’s axe lay on the ground near to him, and it was not wonderful, knowing as she did of the feud between them, that she believed Grandfather had done it. Ripple was the nearest place to run for help, but she would not be likely to come here under the circumstances. Indeed, she could not leave her husband to go anywhere for help at first; she found he was just alive, and so she set to work to keep him from slipping away. It was five o’clock before she was able to get any help of any kind. Even then it was only little Amanda Higgins, who had happened that way round on going home from school, because Mrs. Buckle had promised her some cookies. It was nearly seven before the neighbours arrived to carry the poor man to his home, and then the police and the Doctor had to be sent for.”
Jack drew a long breath. “It is something to know that Grandfather did not do a thing like that! But why did he go away? It looks as if he had had something to be ashamed of anyhow. The puzzle seems to grow rather than decrease. Don’t you think so?”
Pam nodded. She was so fearfully out of breath, and she was feeling so exhausted, that she had no strength left for any more speculation just then. She could not even feel properly glad over the lifting of one cloud, so afraid was she that another was going to brood close over her. There must have been some strong reason for her grandfather going away and remaining absent, and she quailed lest the reason might be one to be ashamed of. It is not easy to take rosy views of things when one is drenched to the skin with muddy water and aching from head to foot. Hope and courage would spring again presently, but just now they were low down, and nothing would have been easier than for Pam to collapse in a miserable heap and burst into crying.