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Page 39
Then Tom and Harry reached a spot where they could rise to their own
feet and floundered. Tom started, then swayed dizzily.
"Steady, there, old Gridley boy!" mumbled Hazelton, slipping an arm
around his recovered chum.
Then the two young engineers reached the platform and a fresh tumult of
joyful cheering burst forth.
"Payson," exclaimed Harry, going up to the foreman, and holding out his
hand, "will you accept my apologies for all I said to you? I had to use
strong language, or you'd have held me back from Reade."
"I didn't believe he could be saved," returned the foreman, with a
sickly smile, as he grasped Hazelton's outstretched hand.
Tom, too weak at first to stand, had dropped to his knees at the side of
the unconscious laborer, over whom some of the bystanders were working
in stupid fashion.
"This man must have medical attention at once!" Tom declared. "Some of
you men lift him to your shoulders. Be careful not to jolt him, but
travel at a jog all the way to the office building. Harry, can you sit
on your horse?"
"Surely," said the young assistant.
"Lucky boy, then," smiled Reade. "I won't be able to sit in saddle for
some minutes. Ride into camp and tell the operator to wire swiftly for
a physician to come out and attend to that man."
"But you--"
"I'm here, am I not!" smiled Reade.
"I should say you are, Mr. Reade!" came a hoarse, friendly roar from one
of the laborers.
Hazelton did not delay. He was soon speeding back over the desert.
As for Tom, there were many offers of assistance, but he explained that
all he needed was to keep quiet and have a chance to get his breath
back.
Payson, in the meantime, had started the work going again, though most
of his men toiled with far less spirit than before the accident.
Ten minutes later Tom mounted his horse and rode slowly back toward
camp. By the time he reached there he made out the automobile of a
Paloma physician coming in haste.
Tom was still weak enough to tremble as Harry stepped outside and helped
him to the ground.
"Harry," Reade remarked dryly, "I'm not going to bother to thank you for
such a simple little thing as saving my life out yonder. I am well
aware that you had the time of your life in doing it."
"I might have had the time of my life," returned Harry, with an
imitation of his chum's calmness, "if there had been more excitement
about it. It was all rather dull, wasn't it, old chap?"
Smiling, both stepped inside. Then Tom's face became grave when he saw
that the rescued laborer had not yet recovered consciousness.
"Somewhere in the world," murmured Reade, as he dropped to one knee and
rested a finger-tip on the laborer's pulse, "there's someone--a woman,
or a child, or a white-haired old man--who wouldn't wish us to let this
man die. What have you men been doing for him?"
Before the answer could be given a honk sounded at the door. Then a
young doctor clad in white duck and carrying a three-fold medicine case,
stepped inside.
"Sucked down by the sand and hauled out again, Doc," Tom explained.
The physician looked closely at his patient and Harry drove out the men
who had no especial business there.
"A little pin-head of glonoin on his tongue for a beginning," decided
the physician, opening his case. From one of the vials he took a small
pellet, forcing it between the lips of the unconscious man. Then, with
his stethoscope, he listened for the heart beats.
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