He went outside and Walt helped him drag the old man into the hut. The lightning, by one of those freaks for which it is noted, had stripped his miserable collection of rags right off him and there did not appear to be much life in him.
The boys laid him on a table and then lighted a lantern, for it was too dark to see but by artificial light. All this time the storm raged and crashed alarmingly about them, but they were too intent on discovering a spark of life in the old hermit to pay any attention to it.
“Get some water, quick!” ordered Jack.
There was a tub in one corner of the hut and the boys dipped cloths into it, which Jack applied to the base of the old man’s skull. After a time, to Jack’s great delight, the old hermit began to give signs of recovery. He opened his queer, bloodshot eyes and looked up at the boys.
“How do you feel?” asked Jack.
“As if I’d bin kicked by a blamed mule,” answered Mad Mat.
The boys could not help laughing at his whimsical description of the effects of the lightning.
“It took all the—the————”—Jack hesitated as to what to call the hermit’s rags—“the clothes off you.”
“Consarn it, so it did,” grunted the old man, sitting up. “The last time it hit me it did the same thing.”
“What! Have you been hit before?” demanded the boys in astonishment.