Doctor Cole opened the door. Beyond in the rude room of the shack a lamp flared smokily.
"Why," said Doctor Cole, "his pulse is a lot stronger, Mr. O'Neill, and he complains now of pain--"
"It means, Kenny," said Frank Barrington, "that he has passed on normally to the stage of reaction." But his keen, intelligent eyes sought Doctor Cole with a furtive lifting of his brows and asked a question.
"Not a sign," said the little doctor gladly. "If anything he's a shade too wide awake. And irritable. I've been setting his leg--"
"I'm sorry," stammered the doctor. "I--I quite forgot you didn't know. . . . Broken between the knee and the hip," he added, turning to Barrington. "I thought it merely paresis of the muscles until--"
"Where is he?" put in Kenny sharply. "What room?"
"There are only two rooms here," said Doctor Cole. "The stairway's yonder."
"Just a minute, Kenny." Frank checked him with a gesture. "I'm going up first with Doctor Cole."
"Sit down," said Frank kindly. "Where's some brandy? Thank you, Doctor. Now, Kenny, listen, please. The first risk to Brian's life is past. I mean death from shock. He's not drowsy and he's feeling pain. His leg, in the face of other possibilities, is merely painful. But I must look at his head--"
"Frank, darlin'," said Kenny patiently, "I brought you up here to order us all around. Go to it."
He flung himself into a chair by the stove and drowsing after a while in a reactive sweep of exhaustion, awakened with a terrified jerk. A boy was banking the red-hot stove, his white face like and yet unlike--Joan's.
"Mr. O'Neill," he blurted with a boyish sob, "I--I did it. I was driving the mule-cart up the path. Grogan told me not to but I--I coaxed Tony. And when some earth crumbled ahead I jerked back--too quickly--and scared the mule. I've got to tell somebody. I've got to. . . . And nobody listens--"
"Tell me the rest," said Kenny wanly. "I've been wonderin'."
"You see, Mr. O'Neill," he gulped, his eyes dark with grief and horror, "the mule went back upon his haunches and drove the cart against a boulder. It came out and crashed over the ledge and through the roof of the dynamite shack--"
"God!" In that vivid moment of his picturing, Kenny wondered why he should think of bouillon cups crashing loudly on a roof.