“No-o thank–you!” The injured man shifted his shoulders ever so slightly upon one elbow and looked at her; the tiniest laugh shot the rapids of pain in his eye. “My son said you had a whole lot of ‘pep’–same that’s in your inventor-father, I suppose, who wants to bombard the moon!... My son who’s play-ing baseball now down on the Greylock field–mountain’s foot!” The sufferer here appealed to Andrew. “If you could–only–get him up here, I’d be all right! There’s an auto at the nearest farmhouse–maybe they’d let you take it. Any one–any one can point out ‘Starry’”–in a lame rush of pride–“player who made that home run–”
“Hadna I better bid him bring a doctor along too–a stretcher as weel?” put in the Scotchman dryly.
The victim nodded, looking at the other’s cap.
“You’re a chauffeur,” he pleaded; “you’ll drive fast?”
“Aye, fegs! Fast as God and gasoline will let me!” answered Andrew devoutly, with an anxious glance at the two girls.
As his tall, spare figure scrambled on down the trail, the sufferer raised his eyes to Pemrose.
“If–if you could t-twist my knapsack round from under me,” he murmured; “there’s a restorative in it–a few drops of ammonia–I’m faint!”
She did so–and turned for the moment as faint as he was.
The whole trail swam, grew black–black as the wisp of thin, ebony silk, parachute silk, with a fraction of a bent wire frame peeping out from one corner of that roomy knapsack.
“Well! are you going to desert me now-ow?... Now that the thief is so-o nice-ly bagged!”