“That there sprained leg——” Joe began, doubtfully.
“Yes—it’ll be about as tough a proposition as the broken one. But——”
The two men looked at each other.
“If you say so——” agreed Joe.
“Let’s try it,” urged Jarvis. “It’s a question of human suffering, or brute—and there’s a possibility of success. I shall be here a day or two longer—over the Fourth. I’ll play nurse as long as I stay—I’d like nothing better. I was born and brought up with horses—in Kentucky.”
“What I ain’t picked up about ’em I knew when I was born,” said Joe, with a laugh and a pat of the mare’s head. “All right—we’ll turn ourselves into a couple of amachure vet’rinaries—seein’ they ain’t none hereabouts.”
Between them they had soon bestowed the mare upon the stone boat in the best possible position for enduring the ride.
“Seems as if she understands the whole thing,” Joe said, at length, looking down into the animal’s face as her head lay quietly upon the blanket. “You’re a lady,” he said, softly, to Betty. The mare’s beautiful liquid eyes looked dumbly back at him, and he stooped and rubbed her nose. “Yes, you’re a lady,” he repeated, “and we’ll do our level best to deserve your trustin’ us—poor little wreck.”
In a roomy stall they put Betty. It was an afternoon’s work to arrange it for the scientific treatment of the broken leg. Joe, with the readiness of a surgeon—he was, indeed, an amateur veterinary, and was consulted as such by the whole countryside—set the leg and put it in plaster of Paris. The two men rigged a sling which should keep the weight of the mare off the injured legs and support her body. With the help of two farm hands, Betty was put into this gear in a way which made it impossible for her to move enough to hurt the broken leg. A rest was provided for her head, and her equine comfort was in every way considered. When all was done, the farmer and the electrical engineer looked at each other with exceeding satisfaction.
“She’ll get well,” said Jarvis, with conviction. “I never saw it better done than you have managed it.”