"All right," Roy answered; "my foot is caught under the flooring."

"Blythe all right? How about you, Blythey?"

Blythe did not answer. He seemed immovable, like a figure of stone. His bare arms gave the impression of a taut rope. A heavy timber which they lifted from across his back, where it had lain like a seesaw, must have all but broken his spine. A rusted nail in it had torn his poor, shabby coat almost in twain, and there was blood on the flannel shirt beneath it. Blood was flowing freely from a wound in his head and dripping down from his neck like water off a roof.

They turned back his coat collar to see if there might be a cut on his neck and there, confronting them, was the little cloth label containing the name of the clothing store in Quebec. It shocked the scouts to see that in the very moment of their friend's supreme heroism.

"Blythe? Are you all right? Speak? Stand up, can't you?"

He neither moved nor spoke. He seemed transformed into an iron brace.

Across the calves of his legs lay a heavy timber, which had cut his trousers and which must almost have crushed his legs when it fell. As they lifted it blood trickled away. They noticed that he moved both feet spasmodically as if they had been asleep. There could have been no circulation there, for the timber across his legs had acted like a great tourniquet.

He remained immovable, silent, until the scouts had released Roy's foot and helped him out from under that human roof. That roof, at least, had not collapsed. Bruised and bleeding as Blythe was, he remained in his att.i.tude of Herculean resistance as if he had died and become petrified there.

Then he spoke, his voice weak but tense, "Is he all right?"

"Yes, I'm all right," said Roy; "how about you?"

Blythe did not answer. He drew himself to his feet, reeled, clutched at Westy who stood nearest, and fell to the ground insensible.

Just at that moment Warde Hollister noticed something, and without speaking indicated it to one or two others. It was a trifling coincidence and held his glance and thought for but a second. On an end of fallen beam which protruded from the wreckage sat a robin with head c.o.c.ked sideways watching the stricken, unconscious hero.

It seemed odd that right in that minute of his heroic abandonment, his companions should be reminded of his villainy and of his gentleness....

CHAPTER XXVI

MR. FERRETT'S TRIUMPH

Roy's injury was but a strained ankle. For a moment he seemed dazed and unable to realize what had happened. That the whole collapsed roof had been held above him by superhuman effort of Blythe only dawned on him when he saw the bleeding, unconscious form of his friend lying clear of the wreckage, Doc Carson kneeling by him, the others standing silently about. It did occur to Roy, as odd thoughts do come in tense moments, how pleased and content Blythe would be could he but know that "Doctor Cawson" was in attendance. His faith in scout first aid was so great, so flattering....

They made sure that his back was not broken and that his heart action was not dangerously weak. Doc bathed the streaked hair and sterilized the cut which he thought was not necessarily mortal.

"Someone will have to get a doctor," he said. He seemed the calmest one present. "Hustle to Dumont or Haworth, one of you, and get to a 'phone.

If you can find a doctor send him, but anyway call up Bridgeboro; call up the hospital and tell them someone is hurt up here."

Roy was starting but Artie Van Arlen pulled him back. "It's all you can do to limp," he said. "I'll go."

"If it's a hospital emergency call, the police will come," Westy warned.

"Never mind," said Doc, "get to a 'phone, that's all I care about. And hustle."

Before he had finished speaking Artie was gone. Several of them watched his fleeting form, moving with steady, easy speed down the smooth white road. The patter of his shoes sounded farther and farther off until the sound died altogether, and the hurrying figure grew smaller and smaller as if it were going down the scale from patrol leader to tenderfoot.

They saw his hat blow off and that he did not pause to recover it. Then he pa.s.sed between the old gateposts where the sentinels had once stood, and disappeared in a turn of the road. There were houses a little beyond that point.

Under Doc's direction the scouts worked three boards under Blythe's own balsam couch and carried this to where he lay. They got him onto it and bore it gently into the camping shack, out of the glaring sunlight.

There, in Blythe's Bunk, the only home he knew, they laid him gently down and at Doc's request those who were not needed went out. The victim lay quite unconscious, his face ghastly pale and with a look of being polished caused perhaps by the water which Doc Carson kept applying.

The wet, matted hair, too, gave him a ghastly, unhuman look. But Doc said that his pulse was fair and that the blood was not flowing too profusely. That was all he would say. With the true spirit of one who ministers he seemed to have forgotten all else except that Blythe was stricken.

Outside the air seemed tense, the scouts standing about in little groups, waiting. Their suspense was shown in the occasional glances which they gave up the road. They spoke in undertones, their talk was forced and charged with nervous tension. A kind of foreboding dwelt among them.

"They'll find out everything now," one said. "Should we maybe hide his coat?"

"We have no right to do that," said another.

"It's out of our hands now," Westy said.

Then spoke Pee-wee Harris out of his staunch, st.u.r.dy little heart, "I don't care--I don't care what you say--he didn't do it. Lots of people look like other people. Because anyway I know he didn't do it. Remember about that robin."

"How about the label, Kid?"

Pee-wee had not time to answer this poser for along the road came the ambulance, pell-mell. Surely, the boys thought, Artie could not have spoken of Blythe's ident.i.ty over the 'phone, yet following the ambulance came the touring car of Bridgeboro's police department with the chief in it, the policeman chauffeur, a couple of other men, and county detective Ferrett. A couple of other cars, too, came lagging behind, in deference to the speed laws, doubtless lured thither by the sonorous gong of the ambulance and the imposing official display.

Pretty soon Artie came along scout pace. The scene of the pleasant little scout camp was presently overrun by aimless sojourners in private cars, who gathered about awaiting the actions of the high and mighty.

The surgeon in spotless white examined Blythe and said little. When one of the scouts ventured to ask him if the injuries would prove fatal he said, "Not necessarily."

"Who is this fellow anyway?" the Bridgeboro chief asked.

"He's a fellow that's hurt," Doc Carson answered rather dryly.

"Belong around here?"

"He was working here and we were helping him," Westy said.

"What's his name?"

"Blythe."

"What do you boys know about this chap?"

No one answered this question. The boys felt nervous, uncertain what to say. The one person present who was quite oblivious to all this official nonsense at such a time was the one whom it most concerned, Blythe. He lay stark upon his balsam couch with the blessing of unconsciousness upon him. The surgeon, with a few words and much quiet show of efficiency, knelt by him, heedless of these official busybodies. What hint he had of possible crime none could say. But they were like vultures.

"Where's the fire department?" Warde Hollister ventured to ask a brother scout.

At this point the surgeon with gentle deftness removed the victim's faded, threadbare coat, and threw it upon the ground. With the promptness of sudden discovery county detective Ferrett picked it up. He held it distastefully, as one holds a thing infected. To the boys his act seemed like an insult to the poor worn rag with its tear, caused by the falling beam, and its brown bloodstain. But none of them spoke. Roy, in particular, watched the official with keen interest.

"Dominion--Dominion Clothing Company," they heard him say; "Quebec, Canada."

There followed an awful pause. That would have been the time for the scouts to speak. But none spoke.

"Hold on a minute," they heard Mr. Ferrett say, just as two men were about to lift the canvas stretcher which they had slipped under Blythe's body; "just a moment."

He took from his pocket a sort of huge wallet, and fumbling among its multifarious contents pulled out an old faded paper, which he opened.