"What d'you think of her, Doc? And after all I'd done for the old girl! Talk about ingratitude! Nursing her along all this way—clear from the Hempstead grounds; and then, when I had to land her, doing it as though I were putting her to sleep in a feather-bed—cranky old thing! I hopped out to see what was wrong with the propeller, and what does she do to me? Slapped me! That's what she did. Slapped me—and I never did a thing to her——"
His shaking, querulous voice trailed off into indistinct mutterings. The two nurses looked curiously at the face of the man on the stretcher while the surgeon was opening the door and the wheeled conveyance was rolled into the spotless operating room.
The nurses were not usually curious regarding the cases brought in by the ambulances. There were so many each day that Belinda Melnotte, with all her interest in the work, thought of them only in numbers. There is little variety in city accident cases.
But the babbling of this young man, whose strained, flushed face appeared at one end of the ambulance sheet, caught her attention. It suggested something out of the ordinary; the victim might be an extraordinary person.
"Oh, Belinda!" whispered Sue Blaine, suddenly seizing Belinda's arm. "I know who he is. Sandy Sanderson!"
Belinda repeated the name questioningly. "You know him?" she asked.
"From his pictures in the papers. Don't you remember? The flying man—Sandy Sanderson they call him. He won one of the flying events at the Sheepshead Bay maneuvers only last month. Surely you remember?"
Belinda shook her head negatively; but her eyes remained fixed upon the face of the victim of the accident. "He is feverish," she murmured, following the stretcher into the operating room. This was indeed no ordinary case. She half understood already the meaning of the young man's muttered phrases. He might be seriously injured. An aviator!
"This way," said the surgeon gutturally, speaking to the men who lifted the patient. The latter screamed weakly as he was moved; then he fell silent and into a syncope.
"Much fever here. Hum!" muttered Doctor Herschall, straightening the limbs of the young man on the high table. The attendants departed. The nurse had been arranging the stand of instruments, and now wheeled it to the doctor's hand. The cone, sponge, and can of ether were ready. The surgeon continued to examine deftly the body before him.