Not more than half a mile further on they reached a village called Boonton. On inquiring, they were soon directed to a doctor’s house, and Ralph, who, after a brief period of consciousness, had again lapsed into insensibility, was placed in the physician’s hands for treatment. Tom was almost dying with anxiety to ask the lad some questions which might put him on the track of Jack, but the physician forbade his patient being bothered for the present.
“But I will allow you to talk to him this evening,” he said, and with this Tom and Mr. Bowler had to be satisfied. The physician, whose name was Tallman, had a sort of small private hospital in one wing of his house, and in a room in this Ralph was put to bed and made as comfortable as possible.
“The boy appears to have been half starved,” said the doctor, “and that has weakened his system so much that he cannot resist pain like a healthy person.”
Whereupon Tom related all he knew of Ralph’s story, not omitting to tell of the rough hands into which the boy had fallen the day before.
“What is his name?” asked the doctor.
“Ralph,” rejoined Tom, and was not slow to notice an odd look pass over the physician’s face. It seemed almost as if the name called up a familiar recollection to him.
“Do you know any one of that name?” asked Mr. Bowler, who, like Tom, had seen the interested expression of the medical man.
“I did once, many years ago,” was the reply, “but I have no idea that this lad can be any relative of his. After all, Ralph’s a common enough name.”
CHAPTER XVI—JACK IN DIRE PERIL
Jack Chadwick opened his eyes and looked languidly about him. His ears sang with the noise of a hundred waterfalls, his brain throbbed cruelly.