Without waiting to inform the others of his decision, Jerry leaped over the rocks and crashed through the brush. Dick and Harry followed a second later.
As they stood looking down at the wan face of a very old man their hearts were touched.
“Poor fellow,” Jerry said, kneeling and lifting the hand that held the gun. “I reckon firing that shot was the last act he did in this life.”
“I’m not so sure.” Dick had opened the old man’s torn shirt and was listening to his heart. “He’s still alive. Hadn’t we better get him back to Tombstone to a doctor?”
For answer the boys lifted the stranger who was lighter than they had dreamed possible and carried him slowly back up to the road. The girls, awed and silent, asked if they could help, but Jerry shook his head. At his suggestion the old man was placed at his side. The girls rolled their sweater coats to place under his head and shoulders. Dick, from the back, through a tear in the curtain, held him in position.
Turning the cars was difficult but not impossible. Awed and in silence they returned to town.
Dr. Conrad, luckily, was in his office in a small adobe building near the hotel. The old man was still breathing when he was carried in and laid on a couch. Restoratives quickly applied were effective and soon the tired sunken eyes opened. The unkempt grizzled head turned restlessly, then pleadingly he asked, “Jackie, have you seen him?”
There was such a yearning eagerness in the old man’s face that Mary hated to have to shake her head and say, “No.”
Jerry asked, “Who is Jackie?” But the old man did not reply. As though the effort had been too much for him, he closed his eyes and rested.
Dick exclaimed eagerly, “Jerry, you know that young boy we brought over with the bandits. Couldn’t we ask Deputy Sheriff Goode to bring him over here? He would know if this old man belongs to the robber band, although that boy certainly didn’t look like a criminal.”