“This time you’re away off, old fellow,” he told Josh. “He didn’t come up into Austria-Hungary on an errand of blood, but one of mercy.”
“As how, Jack?” asked Buster, already deeply interested.
“He has a little sister,” the other went on to say. “She seems to be just so high,” and he held his hand about three feet from the ground, “from which I’d judge she might be something like six or seven years old.”
“A sister, eh?” George remarked skeptically.
“Listen, fellows,” continued Jack, “here’s the story he told me as near as I was able to make it out, for lots of times I had to just guess at things; but it ran fairly smooth, after all. He lived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. There was his mother, a widow with some means, and one little sister. This girl, it seems, was blind and the pet of everybody who knew her.”
“Gee! that sounds interesting,” muttered Josh.
“Some time ago the mother learned of a celebrated surgeon up in Budapest who had performed wonderful cures with people afflicted just as the little child was. It was determined to take the girl to him, and an appointment was made; but just then the mother had the misfortune to sprain her ankle and could not walk a step.”
“Tough luck,” said Buster, “and I can see what the boy did. He looks like he had the grit to carry anything like that out, sure he does.”
Apparently Buster was taking stock in Jack’s story and changing his opinion again with regard to the dark-faced young stranger.