"What happened?" demanded one woman, when Jack turned to take a pail of water from Cora.
"Lightning struck the boiler," replied the young man.
"Oh, mercy!" exclaimed the same unreasonable person, who was delaying the men with her questions. "Any one hurt?"
"Yes, three," and Jack, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and looking like the earnest worker he was, dashed again down a step into the dense smoke to splash the pail of water on the smouldering but now well-wetted woodwork.
It seemed then as if all the guests but our own friends had run out of the building, and were huddled on the porch or standing in the rain under the trees along the path.
Ed and Walter had carried the cook and the dishwasher out from the kitchen immediately after the explosion of the boiler, and the other injured ones were in the little cottage adjoining the hotel, where Miss Robbins was binding up their burns and making good use of her skill and the materials that she carried in her emergency case.
"But I am afraid this man is very dangerously injured," she told Ed.
"A piece of the boiler struck him directly on the back of the head."
"Should he go to the hospital?" asked the young man.
"Without question, if he could. But this is so far from anything like a hospital."
"We could take him to Waterbury in Cora's car," suggested Ed. "That is large enough to make him somewhat easy."