“You’re all right,” Greenleaf said cheerfully, “but you had a pretty narrow squeak. Be quiet now while we wrap you in these hot blankets.”
Together they rolled Ormand in the hot blankets and Greenleaf fed him spoonfuls of hot tea that he had kept from lunch in his canteen.
For a while it did not seem as though Ormand realized what had happened to him, but after a while he raised his hand slowly to the back of his head and a light broke over his face.
“Now I remember,” he said. “I fell off that log and broke my head on the way.”
“Yes,” Greenleaf said, feeling the bump gently, “you cracked it on the way, all right, but you cracked it a good deal harder on the log.”
The reaction from the strain they had all been suffering brought a laugh out of all proportion to the joke.
“I can’t see what threw me so quick,” Ormand said; “it was turning so slowly that I thought I could control it.”
“Didn’t you know she was crooked?” Greenleaf asked in astonishment.
“No,” Ormand said, “I did not notice it.”
“Well,” Greenleaf exclaimed, “you sailed out there into the stream so well that I thought you were an old hand or I would have told you. She was as crooked as a dog’s hind leg and floated pretty solidly belly down. When you started paddling it turned the bowed part way up and she stayed that way till she struck that snag. That forced the bow clear over and she went down the other side with a whoop. Those crooked ones are the deuce to ride; even the old hands seldom tackle them.”
“I don’t know much about it,” Ormand confessed, “but you did it so well, Greeny, that I wanted to show off. It would probably have fixed me if it had not been for you fellows. Well, I feel all right now,” and he tried to get up.
“No you don’t,” Greenleaf said determinedly, pushing him back into the blankets, “you were pretty nearly drowned, and unless you are careful you’ll have pneumonia, and you must not leave those blankets till you are plumb dry.”
“Was I really that near it?” Ormand shivered.
“Seemed to me you were unconscious about an hour,” Scott said.
“Scotty was the only one who had sense enough to know that you were hurt,” Morgan said. “He dived right in as soon as you went overboard while the rest of us were laughing our heads off.”