“I think you’d better send for the ambulance,” he said to the officer. “She’s had a heavy blow on her head. I arrived just in time to see the beginning of the trouble—”
“Ain’t she dead?” said the officer indifferently. “Best get her into her house. Don’t reckon they want to mess up the hospital with such cattle as this.”
Michael caught the fierce gleam in Sam’s eyes. A second more would have seen the officer lying beside the girl in the road and a double tragedy to the record of that night; for Sam was crouched and moving stealthily like a cat toward the officer’s back, a look of almost insane fury upon his small thin face. It was Michael’s steady voice that recalled him to sanity once more, just as many a time in the midst of a game he had put self-control and courage into the hearts of his team.
“Sam, could you come here and hold her head a minute, while I try to get some water? Yes, officer, I think she is living, and she should be got to the hospital as soon as possible. Please give the call at once.”
The officer sauntered off to do his bidding. Michael and Sam began working over the unconscious girl, and the crowd stood idly round waiting until the ambulance rattled up. They watched with awe as the form of the woman was lifted in and Michael and Sam climbed up on the front seat with the driver and rode away; then they drifted away to their several beds and the street settled into its brief night respite.
The two young men waited at the hospital for an hour until a white-capped nurse came to tell them that Lizzie had recovered consciousness, and there was hope of her life. Then they went out into the late night together.
“Sam, you’re coming home with me tonight!” Michael put his arm affectionately around Sam’s shoulders, “You never would come before, but you must come tonight.”
And Sam, looking into the other’s face for an instant, saw that in Michael’s suffering eyes that made him yield.
“I ain’t fit!” Sam murmured as they walked along silently together. It was the first hint that Sam had ever given that he was not every whit as good as Michael; and Michael with rare tact had never by a glance let Sam know how much he wished to have him cleaner, and more suitably garbed.
“Oh, we’ll make that all right!” said Michael fervently thankful that at last the time had come for the presentation of the neat and fitting garments which he had purchased some weeks before for a present for Sam, and which had been waiting for a suitable opportunity of presentation.