An hour or more later Doctor Luke, with Billy Topsail in his wake, thrust into Tom Lute's agitated kitchen and interrupted the amputation of the fiddle finger of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island with a "Well, well, well! What in the name of——" and stood staring—all dusted with snow and shivering and fairly gone purple with cold.
They had Terry Lute cornered, then—his back against the wall, his face horrified, his mouth wide open in a bellow of rage; and Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson were almost upon him—and Tom Lute was grimly ready with the axe and Terry Lute's mother was standing beside the round birch block with the pot of tar in her hands and her apron over her head.
Doctor Luke stood staring at all this—his mouth as wide open, because of a temporary paralysis, due to his amazement, as Terry Lute's mouth was fallen in anger and terror. And it was not long after that—the Doctor being warm and dry, then, and the kitchen quiet and expectant, and Tom Lute and Terry Lute's mother exhibiting relief and the keenest sort of interest—that the Doctor took Terry Lute's fiddle finger in his hand.
Then he began to prepare the finger for the healing thrust of a lance.
"I'm going to cure it, Terry," said he.
"That's good, sir. I'm wonderful glad t' save that finger."
"You cherish that finger, Terry?"
"I does that, sir! I've need of it, sir."
The Doctor was not attending. His attention was on the lance and its object. "Mm-m," he ran on, absently, to make distracting conversation. "You've need of it, eh?"