CHAPTER XIX.
JERRY AND THE DOCTOR.
"I don't see how I can get there in time to be of any service," Dr. Randwent on. "I'll start and walk of course."
"I have a better plan!" cried Jerry suddenly. "Hitch up your horse, andbring two planks along."
"But, my boy, you can't get a horse and carriage across on two narrowplanks."
"I'm not going to try," responded Jerry. "Please do as I say, doctor.We must lose no time. Get the planks and hitch up, please. I'll get youover the bridge."
Soon the rig was ready. The boards stuck out ahead and behind thecarriage, in which the doctor seated himself with his driver. Whilethe boy rode his machine to the bridge the doctor urged the horse to agallop, and soon the structure was reached.
"Now what is your plan, Jerry?"
"I'll show you, sir. Quick, get out the planks and lay them over thegap."
The driver soon had the two boards in position. They formed a narrow andnot very steady temporary bridge over where the black water showed belowthe missing span.
"Can you walk across, doctor?" inquired Jerry.
"I guess so, my head is pretty steady," was the reply.
"Then cross, and I'll follow with my machine," said the boy.
It took the doctor but a few seconds to cross the planks, carrying hismedicine case. Then Jerry, pushing his machine on one plank, and walkingon the other, joined the physician.
"Tell your driver to come back for you in about two hours," suggestedJerry. "If the lady is going to get better I guess you can safely leaveby that time."
"Well, you seem to have the matter all planned," said the doctorsmiling, as he called the order to his driver. "But still I don't seehow I am to get to Mrs. Johnson's unless I walk."
"You're going on my motor cycle," said Jerry. "You can stand on the backstep, and hold on to me. This machine will carry two."
"All right," agreed the physician. "I must take the risk, I guess."
"Well, you won't be taking any more of a risk than that youngster did,doc," interrupted a voice, and the man who had warned Jerry came up. Hehad several planks with him.
"I watched him shoot across that gap," he went on, "and it made meshiver. I thought sure he'd be killed. I hollered at him to wait, as Ihad some planks, but I guess he didn't hear me."
"I heard somebody, but I couldn't stop," Jerry said.
"And do you mean to say you leaped across that missing span?" asked thedoctor.
"That's what he done, doc," said the man. "It was as nervy a thing as Iever seen, and I never seen it outside of a circus."
"It wasn't anything," said Jerry modestly. "I had to get across, andthat was the only way. But we are wasting time. Come on, doctor."
So, with a nervous dread in his heart, the physician got on the rearstep, and clasped Jerry about the shoulders.
"Give us a start," Jerry asked of the countryman, for the boy foundit hard to pedal the machine up grade with the added weight of hispassenger.
The shove gave the motor start enough so that Jerry could turn on thepower, and then he rode off, bearing the much-needed physician. In acomparatively short time they reached the Johnson house.
"Oh, I'm so glad you came, doctor!" exclaimed the woman's husband. "I'mafraid you're too late though."
"We'll see," said the physician cheerfully, as he dismounted from therather uncomfortable step and hurried into the house.
While the doctor found that Mrs. Johnson was in much pain and suffering,he soon discovered that she was not in danger of immediate death, thoughher symptoms were alarming enough to cause herself and her husband muchfear. The physician was able to afford some relief, and in about an hourthe woman was much better, and, so the physician said, on the road torecovery.
"But I only got here just in time," the physician remarked. "If she hadsuffered from such great pain much longer it would have weakened herheart so that the results might have been serious. You owe a great dealto this brave boy, Mr. Johnson. Only for him, and for his ingenuity ingetting me here, the case might have had a different ending."
"I realize that," said the man, "and I can't thank him enough. The othertwo boys aided me also. I don't know what I would have done withoutthem. They helped me heat water and in other ways. I am sure I'll neverforget it."
After seeing that his patient was as comfortable as possible thephysician said he would return home.
"I'll send you as far as the bridge in a carriage," proposed Mr.Johnson. "That is if one of these boys can drive you and bring the rigback. I don't feel like leaving Mrs. Johnson yet."
"I'll drive," volunteered Ned.
So he hitched up a horse and soon the doctor was ready to go, saying hewould call again the next day.
"You boys had better stay here all night," invited Mr. Johnson. "I'll beglad to have you, and it's so late now you can't get to Cresville."
"What will our folks say?" asked Bob. "You know they might worry if wedidn't come home."
"There is a telegraph station not far from my house," put in Dr. Rand."A message can be sent to Cresville from there."
So it was arranged. Ned drove the doctor back, and found that in themeantime the bridge had been repaired so that the passage was safer,though a horse could not be driven over it. The physician promised tosend the message to the boys' parents, and, leaving Ned, Dr. Rand walkedacross the planks, got in his own carriage and drove home, while Nedmade his way back to Mr. Johnson's.
The sick woman continued to improve and soon was much better. Mr.Johnson secured the services of some women neighbors who were broughtto his house by Ned in the carriage, and arrangements were made for theboys to spend the night.
The next morning Mrs. Johnson was so much better that she insisted onsitting up and having a talk with the three boys, whose coming was sofortunate for her. She had high praise for them, especially for Jerry,who blushed like a girl.
"I hear you all come from Cresville," said Mrs. Johnson. "Isn't thatwhere a mill was robbed not long ago?"
"Some one took one thousand dollars from Mr. Judson's place," answeredNed, wondering what was coming.
"I think the thieves must have got some of my money."
"Your money? What do you mean?" asked Ned. "I thought it was all Mr.Judson's."
"It was. I mean that I paid a bill at the mill the afternoon of thenight the robbery took place. Mr. Judson took my money, together withsome other that he had in a box, and locked it all in the safe. It wasquite late, and he said that he would not have time to go to the bank."
"Oh!" cried Ned. "Then some of the money you paid was taken, for it wasthe very money that Mr. Judson didn't take to the bank that was stolen."
"Then there ought to be a clue to the thief," went on Mrs. Johnson.
"How?" asked Jerry.
"Because with the money I paid was a queer looking bill," said thewoman. "It was from some Massachusetts state bank, instead of a nationalnote, and it had a funny mark on it."
"Do you remember what that mark was?" asked Ned, while the other boyswaited in breathless silence.
"I remember it very well," said Mrs. Johnson. "There was a monogramof three letters. I recall them very distinctly because they were theinitials of my brother's name. He is dead, so of course he could nothave put them on the bill, but some one with the same initials did."
"And what were the letters?" asked Jerry.
"They were H. R. C.," was the answer.
The boys, who recalled the initials on the queer bill that Paul Bannerhad received from Noddy Nixon, were too startled to reply. They did notknow what to say.
"That certainly ought to furnish a clue," said Jerry at length, makinga sign to Ned and Bob to say nothing. "But the police do not know that;or, if they do, they have made nothing of it."
"I think I'll write and tell them," said Mrs. Johnson. "It seems a shamefor Mr. Judson to lose all that money."
"Perhaps that would be a good plan," Jerry said quietly. "What was thevalue of the queer bill?"
"It was a ten dollar note," replied Mrs. Johnson.
After some further conversation the boys, finding there was nothingmore they could do, decided they had better start for home. They wereprevailed on, however, to remain for dinner and, shortly after thatmeal, the doctor having come in the meanwhile and pronouncing Mrs.Johnson out of danger, the three chums motored to Cresville, where theyarrived at dusk.