"You won't pry him loose easily," chuckled the man. "I know. I've got a
couple of these myself."

Brennan shrugged. "I thought perhaps--"

"Forget it," said the stranger. "Kid's had trouble. I'll carry him to the
road, you take him from there."

"Okay."

Getting up the ravine was a job of work for the man who carried Jimmy
Holden. Brennan gave a hand, aided with a lift, broke down brush, and
offered to take Jimmy now and again. Jimmy only clung tighter, and the
stranger waved Brennan away with a quick shake of his head.

By the time they reached the road, sirens were wailing on the road up
the hill. Police, firemen, and an ambulance swarmed over the scene. The
firemen went to work on the flaming car with practiced efficiency; the
police clustered around Paul Brennan and extracted from him a story that
had enough truth in it to sound completely convincing. The doctors from
the ambulance took charge of Jimmy Holden. Lacking any other accident
victim, they went to work on him with everything they could do.

They gave him mild sedation, wrapped him in a warm blanket, and put him
to bed on the cot in the ambulance with two of them watching over him. In
the presence of so many solicitous strangers, Jimmy's shock and fright
diminished. The sedation took hold. He dropped off in a light doze that
grew less fitful as time went on. By the time the official accident
report program was over, Jimmy Holden was fast asleep and resting