But the boy cried out again in agony. “Don’t—move me! Don’t touch me!”
“I know, Scout—those burns hurt horribly, but as soon as I get you up on the trail—” he began gently to drag him again, but Elmer Bunty beat at him with one feeble hand.
“Oh—Ranger—don’t! I can’t—breathe—I’m all—broken—to pieces—” he was sobbing, gasping.
Then the young man stopped dragging him and laid him gently down on the ground and began to feel of his legs and his arms and his back with slow, probing fingers, and the Scout bore it with what heroism he could muster until Dean reached his back, and then he screamed again, more terribly than before, and mercifully fainted. This time the Ranger was able with infinite pains and unbelievable exertion to get him back up the slope to the trail before he recovered consciousness and began the dreadful sobbing again. He could move one arm and hand and he touched the back of his head.
“My head is ... leaking,” he said. “I don’t guess it’s ... blood, do you ... Ranger?”
“It is bleeding, a little, Scout.” He was stripping off his own shirt and tearing it into bandages. “I expect you struck it on a rock; I whanged into a tree myself, you know, or I’d have been over there with you sooner.” He wound the khaki strips about the head, covering the great jagged cut; the blood spurted warmly over his fingers while he worked.
“Now, Scout,” he said, kneeling over him, “this is the stiffest job we ever had to do together; it’s worse than ten forest fires. Are you game for it? Are you going to stand by me? Rusty found you, and I’ve brought you up, and Mabel is waiting for you, but you’ve got the hardest part of all; you’ve got to let me carry you.” He bent closer. “There’s a good Scout!”
“No, Ranger, no! I can’t—please—”
“I know how those burns are smarting, and I know there’s something for the doctor to mend, but we’ve got to get out of here—that fire is coming up again, Scout; we’ve got to go; we’ve got to go as the animals went yesterday—remember? Now I’m going to carry you just as gently and easily as I can, but—I’m going to carry you. We’re going to Golindas’, and Mrs. Golinda will help us till Mateo can bring the doctor—there’ll be a soft bed, Scout, and warm food, and dressing for the burns—” His own emergency case—he cursed his heedlessness—was in the saddlebag at White Pines.
Once Dean Wolcott had seen a small bedraggled kitten defending itself against a terrier. He had broken its back, apparently, for it could not rise, but it lay there, embattled, fending him off with its tiny, futile claws. Before he could rush downstairs and out into the yard—it was over. It was like that now, he thought, sickened, the way the child beat him off with his one hand ... the way he must close in on him.... “I don’t dare let you wait, Scout; I don’t dare—not to do this!”