He finally braced his nerves, and, advancing, knelt beside the prostrate boy.

Ralph placed his trembling hand inside the open coat, and let it rest over the heart. His own throbbed loud and strong with hope and relief, as under his finger tips there was a faint, faint fluttering.

"He is alive--thank heaven for that!" cried Ralph fervently.

He ran to the window. Through the broken pane he could view the baseball grounds and the clubhouse beyond.

Will Cheever was sitting outside of the house, and at a little distance another member of the Criterions was exercising with a pair of Indian clubs.

Ralph tried to lift the lower sash, but it would not budge.

He ripped out of place the loose side piece, and removed the sash complete.

"Will--boys!" he shouted loudly, "come--come quick!"

CHAPTER IX--AN UNEXPECTED GUEST

Ralph soon drew the attention of his friends, and in a few minutes Will Cheever and his companion had made their way into the old factory.

Both looked startled as they entered the room, and serious and anxious as Ralph hurriedly told of his discovery and theory.

"It looks as if you were right, Ralph," said Will as he looked closely at the silent form on the floor.

"Poor fellow!" commented Will's companion. "He must have been lying here all alone--all through that storm, too---since yesterday afternoon."

"He isn't dead," announced Will, but still in an awed tone. "What are you going to do, Ralph?"

"We must get him out of here," answered Ralph. "If one of you could bring the cot over from the clubhouse, we will carry him there."

Will sped away on the mission indicated. When he returned, they prepared to use the cot as a stretcher. The strange boy moved and moaned slightly as they lifted him up, but did not open his eyes, and lay perfectly motionless as they carefully carried him down the stairs, across the ballfield, and into the clubhouse.

There was a telephone there. Ralph hurriedly called up a young physician, very friendly with the boys, and whose services they occasionally required.

He arrived in the course of the next fifteen minutes. He expressed surprise at the wet and draggled condition of his patient, felt his pulse, examined his heart, and sat back with his brows knitted in thoughtfulness.

"Who is he?" inquired the doctor.

"I don't know," answered Ralph. "He is a stranger to Stanley Junction.

From his clothes, I should judge he is some poor fellow from the country districts, who has seen hard work," and Ralph told about the first sensational appearance of the stranger at the depot the morning before, and the details of his accidental discovery an hour previous in the old factory.

"Your theory is probably correct, Fairbanks," said the young physician gravely. "That blow on the head is undoubtedly the cause of his present condition, and that baseball undoubtedly struck him down. Lying neglected and insensible for twenty-four hours, and exposed to the storm, has not helped things any."

"But--is his condition dangerous?" inquired Ralph in a fluttering tone.

"It is decidedly serious," answered the doctor. "There appears to be a suspension of nerve activity, and I would say concussion of the brain.

The case puzzles me, however, for the general functions are normal."

"Can't you do something to revive him?" inquired Will.

"I shall try, but I fear returning sensibility will show serious damage to the brain," said the doctor.

He opened his pocket medicine case, and selecting a little phial, prepared a few drops of its contents with water, and hypodermically injected this into the patient's arm.

In a few minutes the watchers observed a warm, healthy flush spread over the white face and limp hands of the rec.u.mbent boy. His muscles twitched. He moved, sighed, and became inert again, but seemed now rather in a deep, natural sleep than in a comatose condition.

The doctor watched his patient silently, seemingly satisfied with the effects of his ministrations.

After a while he took up another phial, held back one eyelid of the sleeper with forefinger and thumb, and let a few drops enter the eye of the sleeper.

The patient shot up one hand as if a hot cinder had struck his eyeball.

He rubbed the afflicted optic, gasped, squirmed, and came half-upright en one arm. Both eyes opened, one blinking as though smarting with pain.

He wavered so weakly that Ralph braced an arm behind to support him.

"Steady now!" said the doctor, touching his patient with a prodding finger to attract his attention. "Who are you, my friend?"

The boy stared blankly at him as he caught the sound of his voice, and then at the three boys. He did not smile, and there was a peculiarly vacant expression on his face.

Then he moved his lips as if his throat was parched and stiff, and said huskily:

"Hungry."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, puzzled and amused. Ralph himself half-smiled. The demand was so distinctively human it cheered him.

The patient kept looking around as if expecting food to be brought to him. The young physician studied him silently. Then he projected half a dozen quick, sharp questions. His patient did not even appear to hear him. He looked reproachfully about him, and again spoke:

"Fried perch would be pretty good!"

"He must be about half-starved, poor fellow!" observed Will. "Doctor, he acts all right, only desperately hungry. Maybe a good square meal will fix him out all right?"

The doctor moved towards the door, and beckoned Ralph there.

"Fairbanks," he said, "this is a serious matter--no, no, I don't mean the fact that the baseball did the damage," he explained hurriedly, as he saw Ralph's face grow pale and troubled. "That was an accident, and something you could not foresee. I mean that this poor fellow is, for the present at least, helpless as a child."

"Doctor," quavered Ralph, "you don't mean his mind is gone."

"I fear it is."

"Oh, don't say that! don't say that!" pleaded Ralph, falling against the door post and covering his face with his hands.

He was genuinely distressed. All the brightness of his good luck and prospects seemed dashed out. He could not divest his mind of a certain responsibility for the condition of the poor fellow on the cot, whose usefulness in life had been cut short by an accidental "lost ball."

"Don't be overcome--it isn't like you, Fairbanks," chided the doctor gently. "I know you feel badly--we all do. Let us get at the practical end of this business without delay. We had better get the patient removed to the hospital, first thing."