The Mystery at Number Six | Page 3

wound he had received. "It hurts a good deal and is growing numb. We'd better get right home. I don't believe I can drive the car. Can you manage it?"
"I'll do the best I can," she said. "You know I've only driven a little since you began to teach me. Come! Let's get to where we left the car--quickly!" She seized his unwounded arm and began to hurry him toward the car, standing far around on the other side of the pool. But the shock and the injury were too much for Sydney. He turned suddenly dizzy and sat down on a sand hummock, sinking his head upon his knees. And Bernice, sure now that he was dying, sank down beside him in despair and began to sob softly.
"Please!--if you will let me--I think I can help!"
Bernice looked up in astonishment. She had no idea there was any one around: she had not given the subject a thought. And she gasped in further wonder at the figure she saw standing before her.
It was a girl, presumably about her own age--fifteen. She was small in frame, lithe and dark, barefooted and rather unkempt in dress, a ragged blue skirt and soiled white middy-blouse being mainly in evidence. The tangled mat of hair was very dark, almost black and unconfined in any way. Her complexion was tanned to a golden-brown hue, evidently through long exposure to the sun. But her features were very pleasing and regular and her eyes were wonderful--great, iris-blue pupils, surrounded by lashes long and dark and curling enough to have satisfied a society beauty. It was the eyes, chiefly, that arrested Bernice.
"Who--who are you?" she could only stammer.
"I live in the house--over there." The girl indicated the old farm-house in the orange-grove. "I--I saw what happened. I think I know what to do--if you'll let me?"
"Oh--thank you--so much! Do anything--anything! We'll be so grateful!" cried the distracted Bernice.
Without another word the girl bent down and raised the boy's wounded wrist that he had left hanging limply down. She turned back the cuff of his shirt which, originally rolled to the elbow, had now fallen over the wrist, scanned the wound critically, and then turned to Bernice.
"Has he a handkerchief?" Bernice extracted one from his pocket, Sydney all the while inert in the stupor that seemed to possess him. The girl quickly tore it into strips and with them bound his arm tightly just above the elbow. To make the bandage tighter, she inserted a small stick and twisted it until Bernice almost winced, so white and bloodless did the lower arm suddenly become. Next she laid her lips to the wound and drew out any poisonous matter there might be. Bernice looked on, wide-eyed and apprehensive. Sydney meanwhile revived enough to realize what was going on.
"I got awfully dizzy!" he said apologetically, and then, for the first time realizing that there was a stranger on the scene and that this same stranger had been rendering him more than medical service, he braced himself up with an astonished, "Oh, thanks, awfully! You're very good to have done so much. I got stung by something, I guess. Hope it wasn't a rattler!"
"Indeed, no! It wasn't a rattler! You'd be in terrible shape by now if it had been," replied the girl. "It wasn't even a moccasin. A hog-nosed snake--that's what it was. They're not often seen. They're harmless, but they have a terrible way!"
"I should say it did!" cried the boy. "The little wretch was only about a foot and half long when I first saw it lying there. I made a strike at it and it suddenly began to swell up and get longer and longer and its eyes were like red sparks of fire and it fought like a perfect demon! I've never come across its like since I've been in Florida. But thank you so much for what you've done! I think you've saved me from having a bad arm, at least."
"It was nothing!" she said and, suddenly overcome by an unconquerable shyness, now that the crisis was over, she turned on her heel and walked rapidly away, increasing her pace to an actual run when she was sufficiently far away.
"Wait, wait!" cried both the young people. "We want--" But she was out of sight in another moment, and later, as they stared after her, they caught a brief glimpse as she flashed into the old farm-house and disappeared from view.
"That's mighty queer!" commented Bernice. "She might have waited a little longer till we could thank her properly and find out who she was! But come along now. You must get straight home and have a doctor tend to your arm. She has probably saved you from any immediate bad effects, but you ought to have it