"Oh! I hope he isn't going to die on us," said Toby, who seemed to feel that in some way his desire to test his parachute life-saving appliance from the tower of the old house had brought this near-tragedy about, and hence he felt unusually sorry.
"I don't think tho," Doctor Ted hastened to tell him; "he got a nathty cwack on the head, and it's fwactured it thome, but right now he theems to be coming out of the daze. There, did you thee his eyeth open and thut again? Next time he'll keep them open, believe me, fellowth."
Imagine the amazement and consternation of the boys when a minute later Ralph Oxley not only opened his eyes, but stared all around at each one in turn, then at the tents and the burning camp fire.
"Where am I?" he stammered, weakly. "What's all this mean? Are we still at the front? Where's my khaki uniform like the ones you're wearing, and why have you put this old white one on me? It's a Spanish suit. I know because I've got one like it home. Who are you? I don't seem to recognize any of you boys."
What seemed next door to a miracle had been wrought! Elmer and Ted stared eagerly at each other as though they could hardly believe their senses.
"He's got his mind back again!" exclaimed Chatz, wildly exultant. "It must have been the crack on the head did it. I've heard of such things, but never thought I'd ever run up against a case. Why, he's as sensible as any of us, fellows!"
Elmer rushed forward, and stood over the recumbent man, who looked at him with a puzzled air.
"Your name is Ralph Oxley, isn't it?" asked the scout master, quietly.
"Yes, it is, but—" began the other, when Elmer raised his hand to stop him.
"I'll explain as near as I can to you," he went on to say. "You were hurt on the head a few years ago, and went out of your mind. Ever since your folks have kept you at home because they said you were not dangerous, but there was an attendant employed to look after you. Some weeks ago you escaped, and nobody has ever found where you went. They feared you had been drowned somewhere. But you must have had the idea you were a Spanish soldier escaped from an American prison, for you have been in hiding up here at the old Cartaret house, and getting what food you could by raiding the farms all around. We are Boy Scouts belonging at Hickory Ridge, and the other day when we were up here we thought we glimpsed somebody, but a few of my chums believed it was a ghost. Now we've come to spend our Thanksgiving holidays in camp. You had a bad tumble, striking your head again, and cutting it; but somehow it has brought you back to your right mind, Ralph Oxley."