A nurse in passing saw him pause, and stopped to say, “Bob’s gone, Doctor Bell.”
The surgeon bent over the cot. A smoking lamp shed a yellow light over the fair face on the coarse pillow. Fair it was, but not with death’s pallor.
No breath seemed to come through the closed lips, however, and Doctor Bell put his hand over his heart.
Then with a start he drew back! The nurse had gone on, he was alone!
Again he bent close. A faint flutter stirred against his hand, and under a bandage bound firmly around the body!
Doctor Bell rose to his feet. “Nurse,” he said sharply, “help me bear this—boy—to my tent, I’m going to save—him!”
It was the hardest struggle the young surgeon ever had. He gave up the long looked for furlough, and beside his other duties cared for and watched the boy in whom he had grown so interested. No hand but his operated on the ghastly wound, or touched the suffering body afterward.
For two days Shirtliffe knew not what was passing around him, but on the third day at sunset he became conscious.
Doctor Bell was beside him, his finger upon the weak pulse.
As memory returned a puzzled, then a horrified expression grew upon Robert’s face.