“He is badly wounded, there is no doubt about that, but in my opinion the wound is not necessarily fatal. I have every hope that we shall be able to pull him through, with this splendid physique to aid us.”
The two friends breathed more freely, and Gaines said, slowly:
“If he were to die, the man who murdered him would have the opportunity to try his hand next on me.”
“And after that on me,” remarked Ballou, “in case he should escape your bullet.”
“The first thing to be attended to is to get him away from here,” cut in the doctor, quietly. Adding: “As the hotel is to close within a few short hours, they would not receive him there. I propose removing him at once to a little cottage I know of adjacent to this place, in which lives an old nurse whom I often employ. She will willingly take him in and do her best for him.”
The two friends received this suggestion gratefully.
Between the three of them, they succeeded in conveying him to the place indicated, without loss of time, and there the doctor made a further examination of his injuries.
“Mr. Challoner’s bullet missed its aim by a single hair’s breadth,” he said; “but with Mrs. Brent’s careful nursing, we may hope for much.”
It was with the greatest of regret that the two friends left Newport the next day for New York, leaving John Dinsmore, who had not yet regained consciousness, in the hands of the doctor, who was a resident of the place, and the aged nurse.
Everything had gone wrong with them; they had been unable, even with the aid of the skillful detective, to find the slightest trace of the man for whom they were looking, and concluded that he had left the resort ere they had reached it, having been informed in advance in some mysterious manner of their coming.