Nick Carter wondered this, too, as he saw Howard Milmarsh leaning on the iron fence of a house a little distance away, across the street, with his head resting on his hand.
“It didn’t get you, did it?” asked Nick, hurrying over to him.
“No. I’m all right! A little shaken, that’s all. But we saved Bessie! That’s the main point!”
“Hum!” grunted Patsy significantly. “When a fellow’s stuck on a girl, he don’t care for much else—eh, Chick?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” grinned Chick, who felt happy over the way everything had turned out. “What do I know about girls?”
Nick slipped an arm around Howard Milmarsh’s shoulder, and there was sympathy in his strong, smoke-begrimed face, which drew forth response from the other at once.
“A brick struck me on the head,” he said, with an involuntary groan. “It hurt my head. But it’s nothing serious.”
“You need rest and quiet for a while, and I’ll see that you get it. Come with me.”
Howard Milmarsh was willing to accept anybody’s kindly ministrations now. The reaction had come, and he felt as weak as a little child. Without answering, he suffered himself to be led away, Carter on one side of him, and Chick on the other, while Patsy ran ahead to see that the chauffeur was there with the big motor car.
When they had lifted the now half-fainting young man into the car and disposed him comfortably with the rugs that were always in the car, Chick and Patsy got in with him.