he boy didn't see them at all.

"Neither Jord nor Aleck can tell much about it yet, of course, but from
the little I got I know as well as if I had been there what happened. He
slammed on the brakes--it was the only thing he could do, with the motor
truck taking up half the narrow street. The pavement was wet--a shower
was just over. Of course she skidded completely around to the left, just
missing the truck, and when she hit the curb over she went. She jammed
Jord between the car and the ground, injuring his back pretty badly but
not permanently, as nearly as I can make out. But she crushed Aleck's
right arm so that--"

He drew a long breath, a difficult breath, and Ellen, listening, cried
out against the thing she instantly felt it meant.

"O Red! You don't mean--"

He nodded. "I took it off, an hour afterward--at the shoulder."

Ellen turned white, and in a moment more she was crying softly within
the shelter of her husband's arm. He sat with set lips, and eyes staring
at the empty fireplace before him. Presently he spoke again, and his
voice was very low, as if he could not trust it:

"Aleck was game. He was the gamest chap I ever saw. All he said when I
told him was, 'Go ahead, Doctor.' I never did a harder thing in all my
life. I suppose army surgeons get more or less used to it, but
somehow--when I knew what that arm meant to Aleck, and how an hour
before it had been a perfect thing, and now--"

He did not try to tell her more just then, but later, when both were
steadied, he added a few more important details to the story:

"Franz went to the hospital with them--wouldn't leave them--ran the risk
of losing his position. Do you know, Jord has been teaching that boy
English, evenings, and naturally Franz adores him. I suppose Jord would
have taken that skid for any blamed beggar who got in his way, but of
course it didn't take any force off the way he jammed on those brakes
when he saw it was a friend he was going to hit. And a friend he was
going to maim--pretty hard choice to make, wasn't it? But of course it
was sure death to Franz if he hit him, at that pace, so there was
nothing else to do but take the chance for himself and Aleck. Maybe you
can guess, though, how he feels about Aleck. One wouldn't think he knew
he'd been cruelly hurt himself."

"Oh! I thought--"

"Jord's back will give him a lot of trouble for a while, but his spine
isn't seriously injured, if I know my trade. Altogether--well--the