“Yours for the cabin, quick!” said Ward, tersely. “Here, Ted, give us a hand.”
MacIlvaine stepped quickly forward, and together they hustled Sanson across the ice. At first, Frank could scarcely move his feet and had to be practically carried along. But gradually the rapid motion, the stumbling, recovering, and general jolting-up began to send the blood tingling back into his chilled body. Ahead of them he could see Ranleigh and Dale Tompkins supporting Trexler, and making even better speed than his own conductors. The sight of that limp body, with one hand dangling helplessly, brought to Frank a sudden stinging pang of remorse and apprehension as he remembered the frenzied blow he had struck the fellow.
“Paul–” he gasped; “is he–”
“It’s the cold and shock mostly, I think,” answered Sherman. “He’s all in, but not really unconscious. Did he go down?”
“I don’t think so. Not more than once, anyway.”
There was no more conversation until after they reached the cabin. Frank was able to stumble up the rocky slope unaided, and, once inside, his clothes were stripped off and he was rolled in blankets that had been heated before the roaring blaze. Muffled in these, with some of the boys deftly rubbing his legs and arms, it wasn’t long before a delicious languor crept over him and he actually felt like dozing off to sleep.
He might have yielded to the impulse but for his anxiety about Trexler. Paul lay in the opposite bunk and was being subjected to the same treatment as Frank, but he did not seem to be responding as readily as the more robust fellow. Of course, he had been longer exposed to the cold and shock, but Sanson did not think of that. He was still worrying over the ruthless manner in which he had struck the boy, and fearful that in some way the blow might be responsible for Trexler’s condition. When Mr. Curtis and the doctor appeared, summoned by one of the fellows who had ridden hastily back to town on his wheel, Frank watched them apprehensively. When the scoutmaster at length came over to his bunk he sat up abruptly and poured forth his doubts and fears before the older man had time to say a word.
Mr. Curtis listened quietly, and when the boy had finished he smiled reassuringly and shook his head. “You needn’t worry about that, Frank,” he said. “The doctor says he’ll come around all right. He’s pretty well done up from the exposure and shock, and you know he’s never been so very strong. I don’t think your hitting him has had much to do with it, but even if it had, no one could blame you. It was a question of that, or of both of you going down, and in such an emergency almost any methods are right. How are you feeling yourself?”
“Oh, I’m all right now, sir. There’s nothing at all the matter with me. I don’t see why I can’t get up.”
“Better not just yet. There’s nothing special you can do. I have a car over by the bridge, and when Paul is fit to be moved, we’ll all go back together.”