It was only a memory now, that gray, wet Christmas morning when Allan had been brought home pale and limp, on a stretcher. They had started from bed at the first tap on the door, for his prolonged absence had begun to worry them, and Jack, unheeding his sprained ankle, had hobbled to it and flung it open. He stood silent as they brought the boy in and set the stretcher on the floor. He watched the doctor strip back his clothing, remove the rude bandage that had been hastily placed over the wound, wipe away the blood, and begin to probe for the bullet. Mary, too, had thrown on her gown and stood watching the operation with white face.
“Doctor,” burst out Jack, at last, almost fiercely, “don’t tell me he’s dead! Don’t tell me he’s goin’ t’ die! He saved my little girl. Don’t tell me I let him go t’ his death!”
“He’ll not die,” said the doctor, reassuringly. “The bullet seems to have been deflected from its course and to have made only a bad flesh wound.”
But it turned the watchers sick to see the probe sink in deeper and deeper. Suddenly the surgeon gave a little exclamation and ran his hand under the boy’s shoulder.
“Here,” he said to his assistant, “turn him over.”
He made a quick cut with a knife under the shoulder-blade, and a little flattened piece of lead fell into his hand.
“There’s the bullet,” and he handed it to Welsh. “Maybe he’ll want it for a keepsake.” And he proceeded skilfully to bandage up the wound.
But it was not until Allan opened his eyes and smiled faintly up at them that Jack and Mary believed that he could live. They fell on their knees beside his bed, but the doctor hurried them away.
“What he needs now is sleep,” he said. “Let him sleep as long as he can.”
“But look at his poor face, doctor,” whispered Mary, “an’ at his hands, all tore and scratched. Do ye suppose them devils did that to him, too?”