Without a word he stooped over the moaning man. Outer clothes were taken off in a trice. Without jarring the man about, almost without moving him, garment by garment Budge gradually removed, replaced, examined, until every part of the man's anatomy had been looked over. Finally he straightened up, and for the first time the other two, who had stood helplessly by, saw how set and white the young Scout's face was.
"Leg's broken all right," he said slowly. "So's his arm—and at least two ribs. Maybe more. Side's pretty badly torn and I think he's bleeding internally. We've got to get a doctor without a second's loss of time. Tod, you chase along like a good fellow and see how quick you can get to a telephone. Jerry, lend a hand here and we'll fix a splint for his leg—lucky it's fractured below the knee or we'd have a time. I don't know whether I can do anything for his ribs or not. Hustle up, Tod—what you standing there gaping for?"
"Where—where'd you learn to do things like that?" blurted Tod, as he started away.
"What? This?" in surprise. "Every Scout knows how to do simple things like this." And he turned back to his bandaging, for he had brought along the camp kit, with its gauze and cotton. Out came his big jackknife and he cut a thumb-sized willow wand, which he split and trimmed. In less than no time he had snapped the bone back into place and wound a professional looking bandage about the home-made splint. He was just about to turn his attention to the injured side when a great crackling in the brush caused both boys to turn.
Three men came bounding across the open space, the foremost, Mr. Fulton.
"Is he alive?" he exclaimed before he recognized the two boys.
"Yes," answered Jerry, "but he's hurt pretty bad—inside, Budge says.
Tod just——"
"Tod! He here? Did he go after a doctor?"
"Here he comes now. Did you get the doctor?" shouted Budge and Jerry together.
"I got his office. It's our own Doctor Burgess. I got Mrs. Burgess and she says the doctor is out this way, and she'll get him by telephone—she can locate him better than I could. He ought to be here most any minute. I'm to watch for him along the road." Tod darted back toward the line of bushes that marked the highway.