Lost Farm Camp Part 24

"Don't be too certain, Bess. There may be reasons."

"What reasons?"

"Oh, business. Davy's crossed the pater's trail up in the woods-and happens to have stumbled on to a rather good thing-if he only knows it."

"Does papa want him to know it?"

"Why, how serious you are, Bessie. How should I know what the pater's up to?"

"If you're going to prevaricate, Wallie, I'll not ask any more questions."

"Oh, come, now, Bess, business is business-"

"I didn't regard our chat as just business," she replied.

"Of course it isn't. I meant between Davy and the governor. Anyway, I don't see why you shouldn't know-if you'll promise not to say a word to any one."

"Do you need to ask me that?"

"No," he answered hesitatingly. He glanced at his sister, noting the faint pallor of her delicate features. "Poor Bess," he thought, "she's. .h.i.t harder than I imagined."

"Well, I'll tell you, Bessie. Things haven't been running smoothly in the office. The pater's really in bad shape financially. We had a chance to make good on a land deal up North till Davy blundered on to the same thing, and he's got the whip-hand. If we can interest Davy-"

"You needn't say any more, Walter. I understand-"

"I'll tell you all about it when we have more time, Bess, but we're too near-" He grasped her arm and threw himself in front of her as the car slid sideways, the rear wheels skidding across the pavement as the chauffeur jammed the brake-pedal down and swung the steering-wheel over at the same instant.

"What is it?" she gasped.

"It's all right, sis," he a.s.sured her, as he jumped to the pavement and ran round to the front of the car where James was stooping over a huddled figure.

"My G.o.d, Jimmy! Did you hit him?"

"Missed him by a hair," said the trembling chauffeur, as he knelt beside the prostrate figure. "Saw him laying there when I was right on top of him. Guess he's had a fit or something."

Bas...o...b..lifted the shoulders of the prostrate man to a level with the headlights of the car. As the white light streamed over their faces he stifled an exclamation. The chauffeur stepped back.

"S-s-s.h.!.+ It's Mr. Ross, a friend of mine. Tell Miss Bas...o...b..it's all right."

But his sister had followed him and stood gazing at the upturned ghastly face.

"Wallie!" she cried, "it's David. Oh, Wallie-"

James sprang to her as she swayed, and drooped to a pa.s.sive weight in his arms.

Together they carried her up the steps and into the house. Miss Ross directed them to an upper room, where with quiet directness she administered restoratives to the unconscious girl.

Bas...o...b..motioned to James, who descended the stairs, and crossing the walk, stooped over the inert figure. He tried to lift the man to the car, but was unable to more than partially drag him along the pavement.

"Miss Bas...o...b..is all right now. She fainted, and no wonder," said Bas...o...b.. as he joined the chauffeur. Together they placed David in the car. "Just a minute, Jimmy." He dashed upstairs and to the bedroom.

"What was it, dearie?" Miss Ross was smoothing the girl's forehead with a soothing hand.

"A man-in the street-we nearly ran over him."

Her brother signaled his approval with his eyes and turned toward Miss Ross. "You'll excuse me, but I'll have to run up to the hospital with him. He seems to have had a fit of some kind. I'll be back soon."

"It's Miss Ross's nephew. I didn't tell her," he said, as he climbed into the chauffeur's seat. "You make him as comfortable as you can, Jimmy. The hospital's the place for him. It's quicker if he's hurt-besides, I didn't have the heart to tell her, but I'll have to when I come back."

The car jumped forward as he spoke, and Jimmy, half supporting the sick man, remembered nothing distinctly except the hum of the engines and two long streaks of light on each side of the roadway until they slowed down at the doors of the hospital.

They waited in an anteroom while David was being examined by a corpulent and apparently disinterested individual, who finally called an attendant and gave a few brief directions.

"No fractures and apparently no internal injuries, but he's had a close call sometime or other," he concluded, running his fingers over the scar above David's temple. "I'll step out and see his friends."

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Bas...o...b.. Didn't recognize you at first. Who is the chap?"

"Davy Ross, Miss Ross's nephew. I think you know her, Doctor Leighton."

"To be sure. So that's her nephew. I'd forgotten him."

"What's wrong with him, Doctor?"

"Can't say yet. I'll telephone Miss Ross right away that there's no immediate danger. Fine woman, Miss Ross."

"I'm going back there myself, Doctor, so if there is any message-?"

"Can't say yet, but you might tell her that I will look after him. Knew his father," said the surgeon, cleaning his gla.s.ses and replacing them.

"May have to operate. That wound above his ear, you know."

"That was a rifle bullet. He got shot up North last year."

"H-u-m-m. Well, we'll see."

CHAPTER XVII-NEWS FROM LOST FARM

"I think I shall come in the evening. It will be much cooler and more pleasant for him, Doctor. Yes, if you will, please. It's two o'clock now. About six o'clock. Thank you."

Miss Ross hung up the telephone receiver and sat for a moment at the alcove desk in her living-room. She reached forward and taking a number of letters and papers from a pigeon-hole, ran them over carefully, and tremblingly replaced them. Then she called her maid and told her to order the carriage for half-past five. "Master David is coming home this evening," she explained. "We will have dinner at seven, as usual."

After the maid had gone, Elizabeth Ross sat for a long time with her hands folded on her lap and her eyes fixed on the darkened window where a keen ray of August suns.h.i.+ne pierced a c.h.i.n.k in the shutters and ran slanting across the interior twilight to the opposite wall. She was thinking of her nephew's accident and the consequences which had so unexpectedly overwhelmed him. The operation had been successful and there would be no recurrence of the disastrous effects due to the original unskilled treatment of the wound.

The doctor had advised rest and freedom from excitement and worry. She wondered, now that David was coming back home, how long he would be satisfied with such a regimen, especially as he had of late expressed annoyance at his detention in the hospital, a.s.suring his aunt that he was not only in fine fettle, but also there were business matters that required his immediate attention. It fretted him to think of the idle weeks that had slipped past since that June evening when he had stepped from the curb to cross the street to his aunt's house, had almost reached the opposite curb when he grew blind in the dusk....

She sighed as she recalled her first visit to the hospital, where that unnatural face had lain so expressionless, so dully indifferent and white, looking up at her but seeing nothing. He was all she had in the world-had been virtually her son since his childhood. Never had his nearness to her heart, his large share in all that she thought or did, been so forcibly apparent to her. Her affection for him had no subtlety.