“I’m talkin’ Gospel,” replied the man on the floor. “Tone lit out last night—but he beat me up before he left. He jumped onto me when I wasn’t lookin’; and I guess he bust me a rib or two. I’m about all in, anyhow.”
So saying, he sagged back against the wall, toppled slowly sideways and lost consciousness.
Gaspard Javet was greatly put out by this accident. He glared at the unconscious man on the floor.
“If I was to lay him out in the snow till he come to, an’ then run him off the place with the toe o’ my boot, it wouldn’t be more’n fair play,” he muttered. “Tom would be in jail now if this sneak had had his way—an’ here he comes an’ lays down on my floor. I’m right glad Ned Tone smashed ’im; an’ I wish he’d smashed Ned Tone too.”
“We must do something for him,” said Catherine. “He may be seriously hurt. The sooner we doctor him the sooner he’ll go away, Grandad.”
Gaspard snorted angrily and lifted the detective from the floor.
“I hope I’ll drop ’im an’ bust all the rest o’ his ribs,” he said; and so he carried him carefully into his own room and put him down gently on his own bed.
When the detective recovered consciousness he found himself very snugly established between the sheets of Gaspard’s bed, and the old man standing near with a steaming bowl in his hand. The bowl contained beef-tea, and the detective drank it eagerly.
“Yer ribs ain’t bust, I reckon,” said Gaspard. “They ain’t stove clear in, anyhow—but they do look kinder beat about,—an’ the color o’ yer eye. What did Ned Tone hit ye with?”
“He knocked me down with his fist and then he whaled me with a stick of firewood,” replied the other.