Allis shot a quick look at her father. He changed the subject, and commenced talking about Alan—wondering where he was, and other irrelevant matters.
Then there was fresh divertisement as Mike rattled up, and Doctor Rathbone, who was of a great size, bustled in to where Mortimer lay.
Three smashed ribs and a broken arm was his inventory of the damage inflicted by Diablo's kick, when he came out again with Porter, in an hour.
“I'm afraid one of the splintered ribs is tickling his lung,” he added, “but the fellow has got such a good nerve that I hardly discovered this unpleasant fact. He'll be all right, however; he's young, and healthy as a peach. Good nursing is the idea, and he'll get that here, of course. He doesn't want much medicine; that we keep for our enemies,—ha! ha!” and he laughed cheerily, as if it were all a joke on the battered man.
“Thim docthers is cold-blooded divils,” was Mike's comment. “Ye'd a thought they'd been throwin' dice, an' it was a horse on the other gintleman. Bot' t'umbs! it was, too. Still, if ould Saw-bones had been in the box yonder wit' Diablo, he wouldn't a-felt so funny.”
“Mortimer behaved well; didn't he, Mike?” asked Porter.
“Behaved well; is it? He was like a live divil; punched thim two big stallions till they took water an' backed out. My word! whin first I see him come to the stable wit' Miss Allis, thinks I, here's wan av thim city chumps; he made me tired. An' whin he talked about Lauzanne's knees, m'aning his hocks, I had to hide me head in a grain bag. But if ye'd seen him handle that fork, bastin' the Black, ye'd a thought it was single sticks he was at, wit' a thousand dollars fer a knock-out.”
“One can't always tell how a colt will shape, can they, Mike?” spoke Porter, for Mike's fanciful description was almost bringing a smile to Mrs. Porter's troubled face.
“Ye can't, sor, an' yer next the trut' there. I've seen a herrin'-gutted weed av a two-year-old—I remember wan now; he was a Lexington. It was at Saratoga; an' bot' t'umbs! he just made hacks av iverythin' in soight—spread-eagled his field. Ye wouldn't a-give two dollars fer him, an' he come out an' cleaned up the Troy Stake, like the great horse he was.”
“And you think Mortimer has turned out something like that; eh, Mike?”