"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" murmured Ruth. "I am afraid he is badly hurt."

"Come, come!" returned Doctor Davison. "Be a brave girl now. If he is
badly hurt he'll need us both to keep our wits about us, you know."

"Ye needn't fret none, leetle gal," said Jasper Parloe's voice, behind
her. "Ye couldn't kill that there Cameron boy, I tell ye! He is as
sassy a young'un as there is in this county."

Doctor Davison turned as though to say something sharp to the mean old
man; but just then the men below shouted up to him:

"He's hit his head and his arm's twisted under him, Doctor. He isn't
conscious, but doesn't seem much hurt otherwise."

"Can you bring him up?" queried the physician.

"That's what we mean to do," was the reply.

Ruth waited beside the old doctor, not without some apprehension. How
would this Tom Cameron look? What kind of a boy was he? According to
Jasper Parloe he was a very bad boy, indeed. She had heard that he was
the son of a rich man. While the men were bringing the senseless body
up the steep bank her mind ran riot with the possibilities that lay in
store for her because of this accident to the dry-goods merchant's
son.

And now the bearers were at the top of the bank, and she could see the
limp form borne by them-- a man holding the body under the arms and