When the dressings were over and his courage was restored the screen was removed from about Billy's cot and he would grin ruefully enough at his nearer neighbors.
"I'm an awful baby. Too tender-hearted--that's me all over," he said once. "I never could stand seeing anybody hurt--and I can see just what they are doing to me all the time!"
Billy knew that the man from Alaska was being wheeled up and down the corridor, and he begged so hard to speak with him that the nurse went out and asked the orderly to wheel the chair in to Billy's cot.
"So you are the brave boy I've heard about, are you?" said the stranger, smiling at the bandaged boy from Central High.
"I know how brave you've heard me," said Billy soberly. "I do a lot of hollering when they are plastering me up."
The man laughed and said: "Just the same I am glad to know you. My name seems to have got away from me for the time being. My mind's slipped a cog, as you might say. What do they call you, son?"
Billy told him his name. "And," he added, "I was right there in front of Chet Belding's father's jewelry store when that automobile knocked you down."
"Yes, sir. I saw the machine. It was a Perriton car all right. It might even have been Pretty Sweet's car. But it wasn't Pretty Sweet driving it, I am sure."
The boy's earnestness caught the man's full attention. "I guess this Sweet boy they tell about is a friend of yours, son?" he said.
"He is a friend all right, all right," said Billy Long. "And I never knew it till right here when I got hurt. Purt--that's what we call him--is a good fellow. And I am sure he wouldn't do such a thing as to knock you down and then run away without finding out if he had hurt you."
"I don't know how that may be," said the man seriously. "But whoever it was that ran me down did me a bad turn. I can't find my name--or who I am--or where I belong. I tell you what it is, Billy Long, that is a serious condition for anybody to be in."
"I guess that's so," admitted the boy. "And you got your leg broken, too, in two places."
"I don't mind much about the broken leg," said the man who had lost his name. "What I am sore about, Billy Long, is not having any name to use. It--it is awfully embarrassing."