e sprang up the bank,
his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood
where his teeth had bitten through.

"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to
be jacked up. Hurry up--do you want him to die under there? _Jump!_"

His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor
transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's
brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such
aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the
semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.

Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes
later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed
lithograph of _The Trial of John Knox_. A plush photograph album was
jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove
upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the
flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with
dull red here and there.

"They stopped here yesterday for some water," sobbed the mistress of the
house hysterically. "Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard at
the little dark one, he was, and both of them making fun."

The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first
of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room,
stripping off his coat while appraising with keen eyes the unconscious
patient.

"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely. "Here, I want a helper--you,
Rose?"

Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up and dragged himself
erect. Gerard's face was no more drawn and colorless than his, but he
answered to the call, as half an hour before he had answered the demand
of the situation for a guide.

"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I deserve it."

Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest of the men were
retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly
thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and
pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across the threshold.

"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive? What?"

"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve, Rose--gently! Clear out,
you; the ambulance men will take care of you when they get here."

Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the scene, and encountered Corrie.

"You----" he snarled, choking, and whirled to face the witnesses,