"Eyes right!" shouted Captain Blair, and every man in the company turned his eyes away from the assembled crowd, and Blair himself stared into the woods on the other side of the path. The company had almost passed out of sight when Blair's voice was heard again.
"Front!" and the danger of detection had blown over.
After this faint interruption, Sam was brought up once more, pale and bloody, and hardly able to stand. Yet he smiled through the blood. Starkie stood off and gave him his coup de grace, a full blow in the solar plexus, which doubled him up quite unconscious on the ground. Clark declared the fight finished, and the crowd broke up hastily, leaving Cleary and his associate to get Sam away as best they could. They had a pail of water, sponges and towels, and they bathed his face; and after half an hour's work were rewarded by having him open his eyes. In another half-hour he was able to stand, and supporting him on each side, they led him slowly down to the hospital.
"What's the matter?" said the doctor as they entered the office. "Oh! I see. You found him lying bleeding up by Fort Hut, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir," said Cleary.
"He must have fallen down and hit his head against a stone, don't you think so?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's a dangerous place; the pine-needles make it very slippery," said the doctor, as he entered the case in his records. "Here, Mose, put Cadet Jinks to bed."
This time Sam was laid up for two weeks, but he felt amply repaid for this loss of time by a visit from no less a person than Cadet Smith.
"Mind you never tell any one I came here," said Smith, "and treat me just the same when you come out as you did before; but I wanted to tell you you're a brick. I never saw a man stand up to a dressing the way you did, and that's the truth."