“Who are you? Are you hurt?” asked Dan.
The other made a strange sound—it was as though he said several words, but they were unlike any speech the boys had ever heard before.
“He can’t be intoxicated; can he?” gasped Billy.
“Why, he’s only a boy!” declared Dan, dragging the unknown into a sitting posture in the snow.
“There’s a cut along his cheek. See! it’s bleeding.”
Billy brought out his handkerchief and wiped the blood away. The mysterious youth—he wasn’t as old as Dan—tried to speak again. The sounds that issued from his lips were so strange that the younger Speedwell was startled.
“I never heard the like, Dan!” he gasped. “Is he some kind of a foreigner?”
“It doesn’t sound human,” drawled Dan. “He must be a stranger from Mars.”
But it was not altogether a joke, although the youth now staggered to his feet with the aid of the brothers, one on either side. He had been much shaken, it was evident. His cheek still bled, and he seemed strangely weak.
“Come along home with us, old man,” Dan said, patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll see what’s the matter with you there.”