CHAPTER VII.

“FIRST AID TO THE INJURED.”

“Oh! that is going to be a regular dandy picture, I tell you, fellows!” Arthur burst out suddenly, while the others were “resting on their oars” for a brief interval. Hugh was clambering down from one limb to another, in order to keep in touch with the descending weight.

“Say, if he hasn’t gone and snapped the whole business, just as we stand!” ejaculated Bud, apparently disgusted that Arthur could bother with such a minor thing when matters of so serious a nature gripped their attention.

“Why shouldn’t I?” demanded the official photographer warmly. “Why, the sun fell full on the poor fellow’s swinging form, and I could see Hugh’s face as plain as print; while you two were in the finest pose ever. You just wait and see how it turns out!—Besides, don’t we want something to show how Hugh engineered this job so finely? Suppose Alec tries to say that it was all made up: You watch me give him a shock when I hold up a print of this splendid rescue work! Oh, I’m not so green as you’d think. I sometimes look ahead a little.”

But the boys were not paying any further attention to Arthur. Hugh had given a signal to commence lowering once more, and the two, who had braced their feet against a convenient root so as to secure a better foundation, let the rope slip softly through their hands, already burning from having felt the contact so long.

Things had apparently arrived at the last stage, for there was the patrol leader crouching on the lower limb, so that he could drop to the ground and receive the oncoming body of the unfortunate aeronaut. As Hugh jumped he gave the word to those at the rope, who continued to lower away carefully, with the air of veterans who knew their business from beginning to end.

A click announced that Arthur could not resist the fascinating prospect of still another picture to add to the value of those he had already secured. All that would be needed now, to make it a complete story, was a photograph of the aeronaut himself at the end, signed with his autograph!

When finally their task was completed, Billy and Bud found that they did not have more than a yard of rope left, showing that Hugh’s calculations had been pretty close.

Hugh was already bending over the figure of the aeronaut, releasing the tightened loop of the rope, which had been cruelly pressing in around his chest under his arms.

The man seemed to be of middle age and medium stature. His thin face was perfectly colorless just then, and it gave the boys a creepy feeling to look at it, so ghastly did it appear.

“How about him, Hugh?” asked Arthur, who had by this time joined the little group around the patrol leader and the wrecked air pilot.

“He’s alive, all right, for I can feel him breathing,” came the welcome response; “but I’m afraid that one arm is broken and badly bruised. You see, he was caught by that crotch up above,—yet perhaps, after all, it served him a good turn, boys.”

“Wow! I should say, yes,” muttered Billy, glancing up as though mentally figuring with what terrific force the man must have struck the hard ground had he dropped the additional sixty feet.

“Better even a fractured arm than a broken neck, I’d say!” ventured Bud sagely.

Meanwhile, in order to make sure of the extent of the man’s injuries, Hugh was trying to get his heavy jacket off. The aeronaut had undoubtedly found no chance to exchange this for anything lighter while rapidly descending from the colder upper regions of space, after his accident in the first place.

Billy hastened to help the patrol leader, and between them they managed to remove the coat, which was so thick in texture that it must have protected the poor fellow’s arm more or less when so violently caught by the crotch in the tree.

After that, Hugh began to open his shirt sleeve. He already knew that it was going to prove a bad job, for this was saturated with fresh blood. The sight made Bud set his teeth together and draw a long breath; while even Billy made a grimace, as though he did not particularly fancy his work, though sticking bravely to it.

Arthur was of course busying himself as usual, fussing with that eternal camera again; and had any of the other three been paying the least attention to him, they must surely have heard that suggestive “click” that told he had secured yet another picture of the wounded man and his attendants.

When he had torn back the discolored sleeve of the man’s shirt, Hugh made a quick, gentle examination, while the others watched all he did with deepest interest. As every scout is supposed to learn more or less in connection with field surgery, especially how to manage a broken or sprained limb so as to give relief until a regular doctor can take charge, Billy and Bud understood just what their comrade was trying to do when they saw him fearlessly working at the dangling arm, the very sight of which gave them a cold chill.

He seemed to have managed to get the fractured bones somewhat in place, for his next movement was to pull out a small package from an inner pocket of his khaki coat, and quickly remove the wrapping paper and rubber band that protected it.

With a wisdom that would have done credit to an older head, Hugh had carried a roll of broad, surgical, bandage tape along with him when starting out on the trip. Probably he had had it along on the preceding day also, though there had been no call for its services. His experience and training had led him to “be prepared” for any accident that might happen to his comrades as they tramped and climbed in the woods.

“Give me a helping hand, Billy, won’t you?” asked the patrol leader.

“Sure thing,” muttered the other, steeling himself for the effort and trying to look as though he enjoyed the experience.

“I’d like to wash all this blood off, if I could, only there’s no water handy,” remarked Hugh, regretfully.

“There’s that brook we crossed, where I stopped to get a drink,” suggested Arthur. “I could run all the way and back, filling my hat full.”

After a slight hesitation, Hugh shook his head in the negative.

“It would take too long, Arthur,” he said. “The sooner I get this arm bandaged up and a splint made to keep it in place, the better; because I’ve seen signs that tell me the gentleman is going to come out of his faint pretty soon. Take hold here, Billy, and do what I tell you. We can pull pretty tight on the tape and it will hold the fractured bones about the way I fixed them.”

All the while he was talking, Hugh had been winding the broad linen tape around the injured arm as neatly as any surgeon would do, and possibly as well, for his whole heart was in his work. And the more the bandage covered the arm, the better it looked in the eyes of the three chums who were watching his labor with considerable pride and approval.

Had the Scout Master been present, he must have smiled with satisfaction to see how his constant endeavors to teach these lads the necessity of being prepared for an emergency were thus bearing ripe fruit, and of excellent quality into the bargain. But then, perhaps he would yet be given the chance to examine the work of Hugh’s hands and to hear the story of the rescue from the boys’ lips.

When the patrol leader had said that the aeronaut was recovering his senses, he had told the exact condition of affairs. They could detect a fluttering of his eyelids now and then; and presently his lips moved whimsically, as though the muscles were first of all beginning to work.

“He opened his eyes then, sure he did, Hugh!” whispered Bud suddenly, just when the other was securing the end of the tape with several stout safety pins that were also discovered deep in one of his pockets.

“That’s good news!” replied Hugh; but he did not take his attention from his work for a single second; he wished to have the job completed before leaving it.

He had fastened the last safety pin, and was patting the arm softly as if congratulating himself on having done at least a decent job, when, on turning toward the aeronaut’s face, he saw that the other’s eyes were now wide open. The man was staring at the boys gathered around him, evidently still half dazed and unable to grasp what it all meant.

“You had an accident in your balloon, sir, and were caught in the top of this tree,” Hugh told him, thinking that the best way to start his brain to working in its proper fashion.

“Oh! now I recollect!” the man cried faintly, as though beginning to clutch at the solution of the mystery. “I was trying to signal to some soldiers to take hold of the rope. Then that tree caught the basket. I was suddenly torn out, and that is the last thing I remember. But how did you get me down here, my boys?”

“We happened to have a long rope, to be used in cliff climbing,” explained the patrol leader; “for we’re Boy Scouts out for practice, you see, sir. By adding your rope to ours we had plenty to lower you over a limb, all of sixty feet. I’ve bandaged your broken arm the best I could, and we’ll get you to town some way or other, sir, you may rest easy on that.”

The aeronaut was about to make some sort of reply, as he started to raise himself with Hugh’s assistance and the use of his well arm, when suddenly Arthur was heard to give a cry of consternation.

“Oh! looky at what’s happening to his things over there by the balloon, Hugh!” he shrieked. And as the other scouts turned their heads, they saw a sight that made them rub their eyes and wonder if they might not be dreaming.