“And you were quite right—we did,” admitted Dan, tenderly arranging the bandages on his wrists.
“And you got them sculpins?” said the boatman, eyeing the three exhausted captives with much disfavor. “Well! the rest of you pile into my house an’ git warm. Let them fellers stay out here and freeze a bit more.”
But he was not as bad as all that. Old John opened the fishhouse and built a fire in the little stove there, and soon the three prisoners were getting warm, too.
Mr. Parker telephoned to his home and to Dr. Kent’s and so relieved the anxiety of the girls’ mothers. Dan called up his own house and caught his father just before he started for the barn to get the milk truck ready.
“Though, in this storm, it is lucky if we get around. I shall take Bob and Betty, rather than the motor truck,” said Mr. Speedwell. “Your mother says to bring that poor boy home with you. We must look after him.”
“And I tell you,” said the enthusiastic Billy, to Mildred and Lettie, “Dummy is going to ‘get in good’—don’t you forget that! Sheriff Kimball says there will be several hundred dollars coming to him.”
“If there’s any chance of a doctor’s helping him your father will know, Mildred,” said Dan. “Make him promise to come out and see Dummy just as soon as he can.”
“I will,” Mildred declared. “He is a real nice boy, I think. And if he learns to talk and goes to school——”
“Oh, he’ll do all of that!” promised Dan. “We’ll see to it, Billy and I.”
“Do see that he gets a new name—or a better one, at least,” suggested Lettie Parker. “Anybody would be handicapped with such a nickname as he has had.”