“We’d better get him into the car and carry him on to Bay Shore,” said Joe, when they had done all they could. “I don’t imagine he’s fatally hurt, although at his age the shock may make it serious.”
Just then the man stirred feebly and his eyes opened. There was a puzzled expression as he gazed into the faces surrounding him, and then a look of comprehension as he recalled the fact of the accident.
“Was it your car that hit me?” he asked. “But no, I know it wasn’t,” he added, as he caught sight of Mabel. “There wasn’t any woman in that machine.”
“Don’t try to talk,” admonished Joe gently. “You’ve had a bad shake-up, but there are no bones broken and you’ll be as good as ever in a little while.”
“They didn’t give me a dog’s chance,” the old man murmured wearily. “They must have seen me coming, but they didn’t honk their horn or give me any warning. They were fooling and laughing, and the car was zigzagging as though the driver was half drunk. An old man like me doesn’t count, I guess, with a bunch of joy riders. Did they stop afterwards?”
“Not a second,” declared Jim angrily. “They rushed on without even looking behind. They’re not much better than a bunch of murderers.”
“I wish we’d got their number,” Joe gritted savagely between his teeth. “I tried to, but they were raising such a cloud of dust that I only caught the numbers seven and four as part of their license number. And that isn’t enough to go by.”
“They ought to be made to pay handsomely for the outrage,” declared Mabel indignantly.
“We’ll telephone to the towns ahead when we get to Bay Shore, describing them as well as we can, and try to have them arrested,” said Joe. “But now we must get to a doctor or a hospital. This man ought to be attended to at once.”