CHAPTER XV Jim Doesn't Know
Sim drove along as fast as she dared, with Arden sitting beside her, bothgirls wondering, conjecturing, and trying in vain to guess what theanswer to the riddle of Jockey Hollow might be.
Now and then one of the girls, to make sure all was well, would turn tothe man in the rumble seat holding his wounded friend in a slantingposition against his own dust-begrimed body; and Jim was begrimed, also.
"Does he seem any better?" Arden asked once.
"No, miss. Not yet."
"He is still alive, isn't he?" asked Sim, wondering what they should doif the answer were in the negative.
"Oh, yes, miss, he's alive. I can feel his heart beating."
"That's good. Is it much farther?"
"Not much. Take the next left turn, please."
Sim did this. Down a country road, lined on each side with bare trees,they saw a small house.
"There's the place, miss! That's where Jim lives," eagerly called thehelping man, who had said his name was Nate Waldon. "I'll be glad when weget him home. I hope the doctor will come soon."
"So do I," murmured Arden.
"We certainly do manage to get into the most curious mix-ups," suggestedSim as she ran the car around the bend and up as close as she could getto the house, which had a drive on one side. There was a barn in therear, but no evidence that it was used as a garage.
It was a small house; not unlike, Arden reflected, a picture of the hutsused by the soldiers of Washington's army when it was encamped in JockeyHollow so many years ago.
At the sound of the stopping car, evidently something unusual in front ofthat little house, a young woman, followed by a small girl about fiveyears old, quickly opened the door and looked out. Then, as she evidentlycaught sight of her husband held in the arms of Nate, she ran out,crying:
"Oh, Jim! What has happened! Are you hurt? Oh, Jim!"
Sim and Arden quickly alighted and helped Nate lift the still unconsciousJim out of the rumble seat. It wasn't easy, for the limp form was heavy.
"He's coming to, I think," said Arden in a low voice to Sim. "I saw hiseyelids flutter."
"Oh, Jim! Jim!" sobbed his wife. The little girl was also sobbing now.Sim, realizing that Arden knew more about first aid than she did, tookcharge of the child.
"He isn't hurt bad, Mrs. Danton, I'm sure he isn't," said Nate with theready sympathy of one worker for another's mate. "He just had a sort of afall and he got bruised a bit and cut up and a hit on the head. But he'llcome around. Mr. Callahan had one of the men telephone for a doctor. Ishe here yet?"
"Not yet. Oh, Jim! Poor Jim!" wailed the excited woman.
"Now, he's all right, didn't I tell you that, Mrs. Danton? Here, pullyourself together. You've got to help this young lady and me carry him inand put him to bed and then get ready for the doctor. Now don't befainting on us." Nate took charge promptly.
"No! No. I won't faint. But what happened?" Mrs. Danton asked.
"He just fell down an old ash-chute," Arden said as she and Nate, withthe help of the man's wife, carried him into the little cottage whereSim, comforting the child, had already preceded them.
Just how they managed, Sim and Arden never had any clear recollectionafterward. But they succeeded in getting poor Jim upon a bed in a roomdownstairs opening out of a small but very neat little kitchen. Then,when his wife was undressing him, with the help of Nate, while Sim, inthe neat kitchen, was telling the little girl a fairy story, Dr. Ramsdellarrived.
"What's going on here?" he asked in a bluff hearty voice. He did notknow, and had probably not seen before, any of those whom he addressed.But he seemed, as Arden said afterward, "like one of the family."
"Oh, doctor, it's my husband!" faltered Mrs. Danton, again on the vergeof tears.
"Tut! Tut! None of that!" warned Dr. Ramsdell. "We'll soon be having yourhusband on his feet again. A little accident, I was told," he remarked,and his eyes swept in turn Arden and Nate.
"He had a fall--at the--the ghost house," Nate answered.
"Ghost house! What joke is that?" chuckled the physician, quickly takingoff his coat and gloves and picking up the black bag he had set down on achair.
Out in the kitchen Sim was intoning to the little girl:
"And when the Prince came riding by in his automobile----"
"Didn't he have a horse?" questioned the child, smiling now.
"No, he was a new sort of Prince--he had a car."
"Oh, how queer! A fairy story with an auto. But I like it. Go on,please."
Dr. Ramsdell bent over the man on the bed. He felt his pulse, put hishand on the heart, and pulled back the closed eyelids.
"Why, he's not badly hurt!" he announced. "My goodness, this is noaccident at all! Just a little shock. Here, my man! How are you? Drinkthis!" He had quickly mixed something in a glass of water that Arden,with ready foresight, had in waiting for him. "That's better. Now tell methe joke about the ghost house."
"It's Sycamore Hall in Jockey Hollow, where he was working," Ardensupplied.
"Oh, there. Yes, I know Sycamore Hall. Old Mrs. Howe claims she ought tohave it, but the Park Commission thinks differently. But this is thefirst I've heard about ghosts. Never mind them. That's the joke. Now, letme look you over."
It did not take Dr. Ramsdell long to ascertain that Jim Danton was notseriously hurt. He was cut and bruised, he had a very slight concussionof the brain, but no fracture of the skull, and a week's rest would makehim well again, the physician announced.
"Keep him quiet," the doctor ordered as he left. But Jim was roused now.He seemed to want to talk. "Let him tell what's on his mind if he caresto," the physician suggested as he left, having set out some medicinefrom his bag and given orders as to its administration.
And when the doctor had gone Jim falteringly told his story.
"How did it happen?" asked his wife, having heard Nate's version.
"I don't know, Minnie. I was up in the room with another man--I sort offorget his name--and we were sizing it up--getting ready to rip itapart----"
"Why, I was there with you," interrupted Nate.
"Oh, that's right--you were." Jim had to talk very slowly. "Well, I wentin the closet to get a crowbar I'd left there."
"I saw you go in," Nate contributed. "But you didn't come out."
"No," said Jim in a curiously dull voice. "I didn't come out. All I knowis that I reached for my crowbar that was leaning against the closet walland then, all of a sudden, it felt as though somebody hit me on the head.I fell down, and that's all I know--until just now." He sighed gratefullyand pressed his wife's nervous hand.
"But what really happened to him? Who hit him?" demanded Mrs. Danton.
"That's what nobody knows," said Nate. "After Jim disappeared, we startedlooking for him. All but gave up when one of these young ladies found himin the cellar--unconscious."
"Neither of us found him," Arden said. "It was the granddaughter of thewoman who claims to own Sycamore Hall--Betty Howe."
"Oh, that terrible ghost house!" moaned Jim's wife. "We heard storiesabout it before Jim went to work there--stories floating around JockeyHollow--told by the Negro and Italian workmen. A lot of them quit. ThenMr. Callahan--Jim's worked for him before--sent out word for better men.Jim has been sick, but he decided to go.
"We needed the money so much. We are so poor--so much in debt." She hadcome out of the sick-room and closed the door. Her husband appeared to besleeping. "And there was a bonus of a hundred dollars for any man whowould work a full week, ghost or no ghost. Jim said he would. He tried,but--the ghost got him!"
She hid her face in her folded arms on the table and sobbed. The littlegirl looked frightened.
"Stop!" commanded Arden. "You mustn't give way like this. Everything isgoing to be all right. Your husband isn't badly hurt. He will get well!"
"But how can we live, meanwhile?" She raised her tear-stained face.
"I will see Mr. Callaha
n about that," said Sim determinedly. "He mustcarry workmen's compensation insurance. My father does in his stores. Youwill be looked after. Now, don't cry. See, you are frightening Suzanne."The little girl had told her name.
"Yes, I must be brave. But, oh, that terrible ghost house. It should beburned down! It almost killed--Jim," Mrs. Danton sobbed.
"It will soon be torn down now," Arden said. "And, really, I don'tbelieve it's a ghost house at all. Those are only silly stories. Yourhusband's accident is explainable on perfectly natural grounds, I'm surewe'll find out. Now we must go. But you will need help. Can't we get someneighbor in?"
"Yes, Mrs. Johnson--she lives in the next house down the road--she willcome in, I think."
"I'll get her," offered Sim. "You wait here, Arden."
Sim soon returned with the kind neighbor, and as the girls had done allthey could do, they said good-bye, promising to come again.
"And tell me another fairy story!" stipulated Suzanne.
"I will, my dear. You can tell your father the one I told you when hegets better, as he soon will."
"I'll do that--yes." Suzanne was cute and had fascinating dimples.
Sim and Arden drove away as the sun was beginning to set. They must pickup Terry and Dot.
"Well," remarked Sim as she speeded the little roadster along, "we've gotsomething to think of now."
"I think," said Arden seriously as she recalled the pathetic scene backat Jim Danton's house, "that we have a stronger motive than ever infinding out about this ghost business--I mean a stronger motive than justtrying to help Granny Howe prove her right to the place."
"There is something queer under all this, Sim. Men shouldn't be hurt likethis just because, possibly, somebody is playing jokes. I'm going to findout the secret of Jockey Hollow!" she declared now.
"And we're all going to help you!" Sim added. "This isn't a ghost story,it's a detective story now."