Then he put the tin cup to his mouth. Perhaps the coffee was hotter than Mr. Scott had expected, for when he lowered the cup again Bob thought he could see a trace of tears in his eyes. But then a renewal of the pain in his leg might account for that—or something else of which he, Bob, knew nothing.
“How is the coffee?” he asked, solicitously, for he disliked to see any one suffer, and felt for the wounded man.
“Splendid! and it somehow seems to cheer me up,” replied the other; though while speaking his eyes still continued to stray over to where Frank knelt, as if possibly the prairie boy had appealed to him especially.
“I’ll fetch you over a share of what we’ve got, Mr. Scott; and I hope you’ll have appetite enough to enjoy it,” Bob went on. “In a case like this, it’s necessary for the patient to keep up his strength, you know.”
“You are right, Bob,” replied the other, giving him a faint smile; “and it’s good of you and your chum to take such care of a stranger who’s dropped out of the clouds, and about whom neither of you know a thing.”
“But you’re hurt, you see,” remarked Bob, just as though that circumstance would account for almost anything they might do for him.
The wounded man did eat rather heartily, after all. He was also somewhat morose for a time after they had finished the meal; his dark brows knitting as if he might be deep in serious thought.
“Perhaps he’s wondering how under the sun we’re going to get him to town in the morning?” suggested Bob, who was just as eager to get a hint from Frank in that line as Mr. Scott could be, for he did not know a thing about it.
“Now, I was thinking,” Frank remarked, “that perhaps he’s bothered because some pet scheme of his has been knocked sky-high by the smash of the balloon. Who knows what sort of business brought him out here with that gas-bag? You know he kept saying ‘all for nothing, too; all for nothing!’”
“Frank,” said the other boy, in low tones, for he did not wish the balloonist to suspect that they were talking about him; “I reckon you’re right, after all. He is bothered over something that’s gone to smash, and it isn’t the balloon either.”