“Mighty warm today,” he remarked to the watching Brick, as he pulled off his khaki shirt over his head. “Won’t need this.” He proceeded to tear the shirt into strips. The narrowest of these he laid aside, and bound the rest over the forked head of the improvised crutch, making a smooth padding.
“Now, let’s have a look at the ankle again.”
Brick summoned up a tired grin. “It’s much better, Doc. You couldn’t look after me any better if you had a beautiful nurse to help you. Say, what do you keep lookin’ over your shoulder all the time for?”
“Am I doing that? Humph! Guess I’m still scared old Mink will pop his head out at us. I sure don’t want to get kidnaped again with that ugly lot, do you?”
While he was speaking, he had deftly wound the strips torn from his shirt tightly about the bruised ankle. The cold-water treatment had reduced the swelling almost completely, but the skin showed an ugly black and blue patch.
“Yell out if I hurt too much,” he ordered; “but the tighter I tie it, the better it will be.” He rose, and helping Brick to his feet, offered him the crutch he had made. “Now see if you can get around.”
Brick gingerly took a few steps. “Gollies, this is a swell crutch, all right! I’m good for a hundred-mile hike right now. But where do we head for?”
For a moment Dirk made no answer. Then something snapped inside him, and he cried out bitterly.
“I don’t know! Where are we? Where is the Lenape gang? We’ve got to find food and shelter before night, and already it’s getting late! Oh, I don’t know where to go, Brick—but we’ve got to go now, or we’re done!”