Edgar stood straight up and gazed round in the darkness, as if in search of inspiration.
“Well, I’m going for the doctor, so the best thing I can do is to take the poor chap along too, if I can get him up in the wagon, that is. I must get him into the wagon, for it is certain that I cannot leave him lying out here while I go to get help.”
Stripping off his coat, and then peeling off the jacket which he wore below, Edgar set to work upon his task. And a frightfully hard task it was, too, for the unknown was bigger than he was himself, and it is likely that he never would have succeeded in getting him into the wagon at all, but for the fact that the man was wasted to a mere bag of bones, and so was the easier to haul about.
Once or twice the poor fellow groaned, as if in protest at the rough treatment which he was receiving, so Edgar knew that there was still life left in the man and persevered in his task, determined to get the poor fellow up somehow. Pucker stood like a post. Perhaps the old horse understood that there was life to be saved, and certain it was that Edgar’s task would have been much harder, and perhaps impossible, if the horse had been restive and anxious to get on; for there was not a post, or a stump, or indeed anything to tie an animal to, so that standing still was an act of grace on the part of the horse, and it helped to save a man’s life.
As soon as he had managed to get his unconscious passenger on board, Edgar slipped on his jacket, but took the brown coat to wrap round the unknown. Bertha’s scarf, however, he kept for himself, and the feel of it about his neck seemed to keep his heart warm. It was ugly, ragged, and old, but it had a magic property in it on this cold spring night, when the light of the moon came faintly through dense masses of clouds, which meant rain next day.
Would the man live until Pentland Broads was reached? The question beat itself out to a monotonous, dirge-like tune in the brain of Edgar as he drove along, and the clop, clop, clop of Pucker’s feet was the only sound that broke the stillness.
Night in the forest is rarely entirely quiet; there is sound and movement all the time, faint whisperings, stealthy creakings, and a suggestion of hidden life on every side. But on the open prairie there is none of this; it is a dense, brooding quiet, which may be literally felt, and it lay upon Edgar as a burden that was too heavy to be borne. Pentland Broads at last! The moon came out from behind the clouds to throw a flood of silvery radiance down upon the ugly houses which were grouped about the store, and the horse quickened its pace, as if understanding the need there was of haste in reaching the end of the journey.
One solitary light gleamed amid the cluster of sleeping dwellings, and that was at the house of the doctor, for which Edgar made a bee line, although he nearly upset the wagon, and must have given his unconscious passenger a cruel shaking, for he drove across a piece of ground which was being trenched for building purposes, and never realized that he was off the trail until he was so nearly upset. However, he got through safely, and, as he saved about ten minutes, the short cut had been well worth taking.
To spring down from the wagon and to bang at the doctor’s door was the work of a minute only, then came a brief period of acute anxiety lest the doctor should not be at home.
“Who is there? What do you want?” shouted a voice from the window hastily thrust open, and Edgar found to his great disgust that his own voice was not entirely steady when he answered: