“Water! water!” he cried, feebly.
Roy hastened outside saying to himself as he went:
“This is a case for Peggy.”
Summoning her he hastily related what had occurred and the warm-hearted girl, with many exclamations of pity, hastened to the wounded man’s side.
“Get me some water quick, Roy,” she exclaimed, tearing a long strip from her linen petticoat to serve as a bandage. Outside the hut, Roy soon found a spring, back of a rickety stable in which the old man had a horse and a ramshackle buggy.
When he returned with the water the poor old fellow took a long draught from a cup Peggy held to his lips and the girl then deftly washed and bandaged his wound. This done the venerable old man seemed to rally, and sitting up in his chair thanked his young friends warmly. Roy, in the meantime, had been looking about the hut and saw that it was furnished in plain, but tidy style. Over the great open fireplace, at one end, hung a big picture. Evidently the canvas was many years old. It was the portrait of a fine, self-reliant looking young man in early manhood. His blue eyes gazed confidently out from the picture and a smile of seeming satisfaction quivered about his lips.
“I’ll bet that’s a fellow who has got on in the world,” thought Roy to himself as he scanned the capable, strong features.
“Ah,” said the old man, observing the lad’s interest in the painting, “that picture is a relic of old, old days. It is a portrait of my brother James. He––But I must tell you how I came to be in the sad condition in which you found me. Have you a comfortable chair, miss? Yes, very well, then I will tell you what happened this afternoon in this hut, and will then relate to you something of my own story for I was not always a hermit and an outcast.”
CHAPTER XV.