“I live some ten miles off toward Somerville; but after that accident I’d hate to ride behind horses again while crippled like this,” said the man.
“No need, sir,” Hugh told him. “If you say the word we’ll send for the ambulance and you can go to the hospital; or if you prefer we can get a car to take you home.”
“I guess I’d better go to the hospital,” the wounded man said. “My wife, she died last spring, and I’ve only got an old man and his wife working on the farm.”
“All right,” returned the scout master. “Dale, will you call up the hospital and tell them to come and get a patient with a broken arm and a sprained ankle? Billy, wrap some soft linen around that sprain now, and soak it with the liniment. Then get another bandage around it, and we’ll loan him a cane. It so happens that he can use the arm he needs to support him when he limps.”
Dale hurried away, and quickly got the town hospital on the wire. When he came back presently he nodded to Hugh. “They’re on the way by now, I reckon,” he announced.
The man had put his uninjured arm through a sleeve of his coat, and the garment was then fastened so that it might not fall off.
“Well, I want to say that you boys have done a right good job tinkering with me,” he said, as they helped him sit up on the cot, and Dale procured the heavy cane that was lying handy. “After this I’m going to take more interest in the scout doings than I’ve done in the past. If being a scout can make boys think, and act like this, there must be a heap of good about the business.”
“You can just depend on it there is, Mr. Benson,” said the big guard, who seemed to know the injured man. “I’ve looked into the game, and let me tell you it’s going to pay a thousand per cent. for every effort put into it by the long-headed gentlemen who have the movement in charge. Ten and twenty years from now there’s going to be a heap better class of men around than you meet to-day; and all on account of these scouts.”
A few minutes later and there was heard the sound of a gong, and up came the Red Cross ambulance. The injured man was easily helped into the vehicle, while Arthur and Hugh explained to the young surgeon just what steps they had taken to relieve suffering, and render first aid to the injured.
“You couldn’t have done better,” said the medical man, patting Arthur on the shoulder, for he knew both lads well, and also understood the design of one of them to some day become a surgeon. “I’ll let you know later what I think of the way you fixed up his arm.”