“Have him hurry up, then,” said the conductor, moved by Tom’s appeal, and able to see for himself that evidently something was wrong with Ned.
Tom dropped his guns, and jumping down the slight embankment sped to Ned, to help him pass a barbed wire fence, and climb the gravelly slope.
“By Jinks—the boy is hurt!” observed the brakeman.
The conductor tapped with his foot impatiently.
“At any rate, he’s making us lose lots of time,” he remarked.
“All aboard!” he called, as Tom and Ned toiled up to the track. And he added, kindly, as the sight of Ned’s pale face and tattered back impressed him: “Get in the first coach, lad. Help him in, Jack.”
With a boost from the brakeman Ned safely landed upon the vestibuled platform. At the same instant, as though he had touched a concealed lever, the train started, so eager was it to be again under way.
Ned, with Tom steadying him, entered the coach, and sat meekly in the seat next to the door. The conductor came to interview them, and curious passengers crowded around; the news that “a boy has been shot” had spread adown the long line of aisles.
Tom answered a multitude of questions; and Ned, too, had his share. He told everybody, in reply to their queries, that he felt all right, but in truth his shoulder was beginning to throb and sting.
Presently a physician came through, and after a keen look into Ned’s face, and a light fingering of the arm and shoulder, pronounced no bones broken; and being told that the victim was going only to Beaufort gave it as his opinion that the wound should wait, rather than be examined on the train.