| Illustrations | ||
| PAGE | ||
| Slowly He Was Let Down | [Frontispiece] | |
| Map of the Meadow Creek Trail | [59] | |
| "What’s the Latest Word?" | [72] | |
| He Struck the Trail | [134] | |
| Beside the Dynamite Box | [203] | |
| The Snow Hid It from View | [309] | |
| Map of the Crooked Trail | [359] | |
| "You’ve Paid for It" | [367] | |
Ross Grant, Tenderfoot
CHAPTER I
A BORN SURGEON
Dr. Fred Grant, recalled in haste from his daily round of professional visits by a telephone message from his nephew, leaped out of his carriage over the yet moving wheel, and, stuffing an open letter into his pocket, rushed up the walk and into his office, which occupied a wing of his commodious house.
A sight met his eyes which was not uncommon, situated as he was in the midst of the coal fields of Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Stretched out on the leather couch lay a man from the mines, black and grimy, his right arm crushed. Two other miners, also blackened with coal-dust, sat on the edges of their chairs, their eyes following the movements of Ross Grant, the doctor’s nephew and self-constituted assistant.
Those movements had been rapid and effective. Again and again had this seventeen-year-old boy been brought face to face with such cases as this, and he handled it promptly and wordlessly. Words, indeed, would have been wasted, as none of his callers spoke English. He had quieted the sufferer with a hypodermic injection of morphine, stripped the injured arm, cleansed it, and treated it with a temporary dressing.
Then, with the bandages firmly in place, he had gone to the telephone and patiently called up house after house until he found his uncle.
When Dr. Grant entered the office, he found Ross calmly taking the temperature of the wounded man.
"He must have met with the accident at least an hour before they got him here," the boy explained, "for he was suffering awfully. I thought I ought to fix him up before trying to find you."