“Huh! For such a wise young man you talk pretty common. There’s no need, Jim Barlow, for you to go back into all the bad grammar and chipped-off words just because you’re talking to—me. I notice you are very particular and careful when you speak to our hosts. Oh, Jim! isn’t this going to be just a glorious summer? Except when I think about Aunt Betty I’m almost too happy to breathe.”
Jim had stumbled along beside her, unseeing the objects that were nearest—the lovely shrubbery, beautiful flowers, and quaint little furnishings of that grand lawn—but with his eyes fixed on a distant mountain peak, bare of verdure, and seemingly but a mass of vari-colored rock; and he now remarked:
“I wonder how much of this country that Dan Ford owns! I wonder if he’s got a claim on the peaks yonder!”
“Come back to earth, boy! Can’t you think anything, see anything but—stones? Here we are at the door and I fancy this gentleman is the doctor. Good evening, sir.”
“Is this the lad with the injured arm?” asked the gentleman meeting the pair, and glancing toward Jim’s bandaged arm, with the coat sleeve hanging loose above it.
“Yes, sir, but it’s nothing. It doesn’t need any attention,” said Jim, ungraciously.
“Behave yourself, Jim. Yes, Doctor—I suppose you’re that?—he is so badly hurt that he’s cross. But it’s wonderful to find a doctor away up here,” said Dorothy. Her odd little air of authority over the great, loutish lad, and her gay smile to himself, instantly won the stranger’s liking, and he answered warmly:
“Wonderful, maybe, but no more so than all of Dan Ford’s doings. Step this way, my son, and Miss, I fancy you’d best not follow just yet. Nurse Melton will assist me, if I need assistance.”
“A nurse, too? How odd!” said Dorothy turning to join her mates.
She did not see Jim Barlow again that night. When the examination was made the doctor found the injured arm in bad shape, swollen and inflamed to a degree that made great care a necessity unless much worse were to follow.