“Oh! thank you, boys,” the other said, eagerly; “it’s very kind of you. Perhaps with your help I might hobble along in some fashion. But I can’t get to see a doctor any too soon to suit me.”
The two boys exchanged glances. How in the wide world they were going to get the wounded man to a town, where his broken leg could be attended before serious complications set in, neither of them could even guess.
But they helped him get on his feet, and foot by foot make for the spot on the bank of the small river where the tent was standing. He groaned frequently, as though suffering great pain; but in the end they managed to half carry him to the camp.
Here, on one of the blankets, he was made as comfortable as possible. While the daylight still lasted Frank took a look at his limb; leaving to his chum the task of preparing supper.
“It’s broken, you find?” asked the man, with great concern.
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid it is; and pretty badly fractured at that,” Frank answered. “We’ll try and make you as comfortable as we can to-night. In the morning perhaps some way for getting you to a doctor may be found.”
At the time Frank did not know in the slightest degree just how such a thing could be accomplished. But he was not one to cross a bridge before coming to it. There were a good many hours between supper time and morning; and surely one of them would be able to think of some remedy.
As they had been sent off on a very important errand to Cherry Blossom Mine, where it was suspected that strange things were in progress, it was hardly to be expected that they could spare the time needed to take this stranger to the nearest town, some twenty miles down the river.
Still, both boys were tender-hearted, and apt to strain a point rather than appear cruel toward a fellow human being.
“Is there any way to save the balloon?” asked Frank, wishing to divert the attention of the groaning aeronaut from his own pains, to some other object in which he might take an interest.