“Some youngster——” Dudley barely said before he was hurrying to meet Cara and her companions.
“Oh!” gasped Barbara. “It’s Nicky! And he’s hurt!”
Between Cara and Ruth, Nicky was being led along, splotches of ugly red staining a bandage that had been wound around the little fellow’s wrist. He was not crying, but his sister Vicky was. She was in the charge of Louise and Esther, who vainly tried to assure the frightened child that her brother would be all right, and that she shouldn’t cry so.
“What happened?” Dudley asked as quickly as his question could be heard, for every one seemed to be talking at once.
“He fell into the lake and cut his arm on some glass,” Cara replied. “I’m glad you’re here, Dud——”
“Oh, it ain’t nauthin’” protested the boy bravely. “I often get cut——”
“But not like this,” Cara insisted. “He had better have it dressed. We were just coming in when we saw him——”
“I’d be home now——”
“A good thing you didn’t go home, Nicky,” Barbara told him authoritatively. “You might scare your granny to death with all that blood.”
“Oh, she isn’t scary.” The boy was wincing with pain, and the pallor of suffering made his dark eyes look strangely old and unreal in his small sharp face.