The servant nodded in reply.
“Then please ask him to hurry down here as soon as possible. We’ve got a badly injured boy with us. Ask him to make all the haste he can. It’s a serious case.”
The man gave a wave of his hand to show he understood and vanished. It did not take long for Dr. Chadwick to appear. He was evidently up early to go on a fishing expedition, for he wore outing clothes. He was a middle-aged but active man. He came down the slope quickly, carrying a black surgical case in one hand. As he saw the boys he broke into a run. Speedily he was on the dock looking down into the tender.
“Well, well,” he exclaimed, “you young men are early callers. What is the trouble? Ah! that lad there! Cut on the head, eh? Bring him ashore and I’ll examine him.”
The injured lad was carefully lifted to the dock by the boys and laid down on the crib-work, while the physician bent over him sympathizingly. He removed the bandage that bound the boy’s head. As he saw the wound he whistled.
“Pretty bad cut, this. How did it happen?”
As the boys explained the case to him, he worked on the wound, applying antiseptics and carefully bandaging it.
“Is the skull fractured?” inquired Ralph.
“That is impossible to say. I cannot do more than examine it now.”
“What had better be done?”