Mr. Radway was sent for, and after he had examined the leg as well as he could, he looked very solemn, for there was no doubt that the bone was badly broken. Even Jack, young as he was, could tell that; but with all his pain he made no complaint.
"This is serious business," he said to his wife when they were out of Jack's hearing. "The bone is badly fractured at the thigh, and there is not a doctor left in Apalachicola to set it. Every one of them is away in the army, and I don't know of a doctor within a hundred miles."
"Except on the gunboat," Mrs. Radway interrupted; "there must be a surgeon on the gunboat."
"I have thought of that," Mr. Radway answered; "but if he should come ashore he would almost certainly be killed, so I could not ask him to come. And if I should take Jack out to the boat, we would very likely be attacked on the way. I must take time to think."
Medicines were scarce in Apalachicola in those days, but they gave Jack a few drops of laudanum to ease the pain, and made a cushion of pillows for his leg. For all his terrible suffering, and the doubt about getting the bone set, he did not utter a word of complaint. But he turned white as the pillows, and the great heat of midsummer on the shore of the Gulf added to his misery.
For hours Mr. Radway walked the floor, trying to make up his mind what to do. Jack's suffering was agony to him, and the uncertainty of getting help increased it. Late in the evening, when all the household were in bed but Mr. and Mrs. Radway, they heard the sound of many feet coming up the walk, then a shuffling of feet on the piazza, and a heavy knock at the front door.
"COULD THEY COME TO ATTACK US WHEN THEY KNOW WHAT TROUBLE WE ARE IN?"
"Have they the heart for that?" Mr. Radway exclaimed. "Could they come to attack us when they know what trouble we are in? Some of them shall pay dearly for it if they have."
The knock was repeated, louder than before, and Mr. Radway took up a rifle and started for the door. Standing the rifle in the corner of the wall, and with a cocked revolver in one hand, he turned the key and opened the door a crack, keeping one foot well braced against it.