“Yes, but Jerry ain't.” And the whistling began again.
“Dry up, for the land's sake! D'you want to fetch the whole tribe here? There's Jerry, now. Come on, Doctor.”
John Baxter was lying just as the Captain had left him, and the others watched anxiously as the doctor listened at the parted lips, and thrust his hand inside the faded blue waistcoat.
“He's alive,” he said after a moment, “but unconscious. We must get him home at once.”
“He heard the bell and was runnin' to the fire when he was took,” said Captain Jerry. “Run out in his shirt sleeves, and was took when he got as fur as here.”
“That's the way I figger it,” said Eri unblushingly. “Lift him carefully, you fellers. Now then!”
“I warned him against over-exertion or excitement months ago,” said the Doctor, as they bore the senseless burden toward the big house, now as black as the grave that was so near its owner. “We must find someone to take care of him at once. I don't believe the old man has a relation within a hundred miles.”
“Why don't we take him to our house?” suggested Captain Jerry. “'Twouldn't seem so plaguey lonesome, anyhow.”
“By mighty!” ejaculated Captain Eri in astonishment. “Well, Jerry, I'll be switched if you ain't right down brilliant once in a while. Of course we will. He can have the spare room. Why didn't I think of that, I wonder?”
And so John Baxter, who had not paid a visit in his native village since his wife died, came at last to his friend's home to pay what seemed likely to be a final one. They carried him up the stairs to the spare room, as dismal and cheerless as spare rooms in the country generally are, undressed him as tenderly as their rough hands would allow, robed him in one of Captain Jerry's nightshirts—the buttons that fastened it had been sewed on by the Captain himself, and were all sizes and colors—and laid him in the big corded bedstead. The Doctor hastened away to procure his medicine case. Ralph Hazeltine, having been profusely thanked for his services and promising to call the next day, went back to the station, and the three captains sat down by the bedside to watch and wait.