“’Lo, Mister Warner. T’men told me you was coming. I calc-late ye came ashore this morning,” said Eli, shaking hands with the engineer.
“Yes, Captain Whittaker,” said Mr. Warner. “We came up on the _Blueflower_. Say, Captain, how’s the ‘doctor’? We have a patient here. We wanted to see if you had anything in your medicine chest to take the pain out of a nasty flesh wound. Some iodine perhaps.”
“Wall, I calc-late ye can have ’bout a pint o’ it. Hope ye ain’t goin’ t’ need moren that ’cause that all’s left in t’ bottle. My two Manx cats ‘Port’ and ‘Sta’berd’ got fightin’ t’ other night an’ I used a heap o’ iodine t’ mend up their plegid hides,” said the lighthouse keeper, a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.
“That will be quite enough,” said Mr. Warner. “Where are your two famous tailless cats? I guess every man in the service knows about those cats.”
“Oh, they’re around somewheres, drat ’em,” said Captain Eli. Then he added:
“All right, come in an’ make yerselfs t’hum, gentlemen, while I consult t’ ‘doc.’”
They were ushered into the spick-and-span living apartment of the tiny four-room cottage adjoining the lighthouse tower, while Captain Whittaker bustled into the kitchen and returned with the portable medicine chest which the Service furnishes to all lighthouse keepers. This was the doctor referred to and Eli scrutinized the various bottles carefully before he brought out one labeled “Poison.”
“Here’s the consarn stuff. Now, let me see this here cut, young feller,” he said. Then when he had looked at the wound he began bathing and bandaging with experienced fingers. Of course Ray winced with pain when the iodine was applied, but he realized that it was the best thing for him.
“There,” said the light keeper after he had finished, “I guess ye’ll pull through all right, providin’ no complications sets in, es Old Doc Chipman sez when he hed stitched up Buck Longyear after t’ red bull hed carried him clear ’cross t’ pasture lot on t’ p’int o’ his horn. How did you come to get beat up so? Been gettin’ fresh to t’ skipper?”
“Yes, tell us your troubles, Ray,” said Jack, who was dreadfully curious to hear the boy’s tale.
“Oh, it isn’t much of a story,” said Ray. “Just a case of my usual luck. I’ve been living with my Uncle Vance for the last ten years. My dad died when I was five and mother followed him a year after. I guess Uncle Vance wasn’t keen on having me on his hands from the first, leastwise he never showed that he liked the idea at all, so I always took it for granted that I was sort of in his way.