The surgeon climbed into the ambulance and they started on an emergency run to the hospital. As the car turned and swept down the canyon, for no reason that she could have explained, Linda began to shake until her teeth clicked. Peter Morrison sprang back across the brook, and running to her side, he put his arm around her and with one hand he pressed her head against his shoulder, covering her face.
“Steady, Linda,” he said quietly, “steady. You know that he is all right. It will only be a question of a short confinement.”
Linda made a brave effort to control herself. She leaned against Peter and held out both her hands.
“I’m all right,” she chattered. “Give me a minute.”
Judge Whiting came to them.
“I am getting away immediately,” he said. “I must reach Louise and Mother before they get word of this. Doctor Fleming will take care of Donald all right. What happened, Linda? Can you tell me?”
Linda opened her lips and tried to speak, but she was too breathless, too full of excitement, to be coherent. To her amazement Katherine O’Donovan scrambled to her feet, lifted her head and faced the Judge. She pointed to the fireplace.
“I was right there, busy with me cookin’ utensils,” she said, “Miss Linda was a-sittin’ on that exact spot, they jist havin finished atin’ some of her haythen messes; and the lad was lyin, square where the boulder struck, on the Indian blanket, atin’ a pace of cactus candy. And jist one pebble came rattlin’ down, but Miss Linda happened to be lookin’, and she scramed to the b’y to be rollin’ under where ye found him; so he gave a flop or two, and it’s well that he took his orders without waitin’ to ask the raison for them, for if he had, at the prisint minute he would be about as thick as a shate of writing paper. The thing dropped clear and straight and drove itself into the earth and stone below it, as ye see.”
Katherine O’Donovan paused.
“Yes,” said the Judge. “Anything else?”