Ida Bellethorne set off on a run for the barn; but unlike Bobby she did not say a word.  Had she thought of any way to help the crooked little man, however, she was too late.  Hunchie suddenly slipped, clutched vainly at the rope, which gave under his weight, and he came down “on the run.”

The rope undoubtedly broke his fall.  He would have been killed had he plunged immediately to the frozen ground beneath.

As it was, when the three girls reached him, he was unconscious and it was plain by the attitude in which he lay that his leg was broken.

CHAPTER XIX

THE EMERGENCY

“Poor Hunchie!” murmured Ida Bellethorne, “I hope it wasn’t because he was surprised to see me that he fell.”

“His surprise did not make that timber slippery with ice,” said Betty, looking up.  “Oh!  Here’s a lady!”

A comfortable looking woman with a shawl over her head was hurrying from the kitchen door of the Candace farmhouse.

“What has happened to that poor man?  He’s been battered and kicked about so much, it would seem, there ain’t much can happen to him that he hasn’t already suffered.

“Ah!  Poor fellow!” she added, stooping over the senseless Hunchie.  “What a deal of trouble some folks seem bound to have.  And not another man on the place!”

She stood up again and stared at the three girls.  Her broad, florid face was all creased with trouble now, but Betty thought she must ordinarily be a very cheerful woman indeed.

“They’ve gone chasing the young stock that broke away.  Dear me! what is going to happen to this poor fellow?  Bill and the rest may be gone for hours, and there’s bones broke here, that’s sure.”

“Where’s a doctor?” asked Bobby eagerly.

“Eleven miles away, my dear, if he’s an inch.  Dr. Pevy is the only man for a broken bone in these woods.  Poor Hunchie!”

“Can’t we get him into his bed?” asked Betty.  “He’ll freeze here.”

“You’re right,” replied the woman, who afterward told them she was Mrs. Candace.  “Yes, we’ll take him into the house and put him into a good bed.  Can you girls lift him?”

They could and did.  And without too much effort the three transported the injured man, who was but a light weight, across the yard, into the house, and to a room which Mrs. Candace showed them.  He began to groan and mutter before they managed to get him on the bed.

There was an old woman who helped Mrs. Candace in the house, and the two removed Hunchie’s outer garments and made him as comfortable as possible while the girls waited in much excitement in the sitting room.

“He saw one of you girls and knows you,” said Mrs. Candace, coming out of the bedroom.  “But he talks about that mare, Ida Bellethorne.”

“This is Ida Bellethorne,” said Betty, pointing to the English girl.

“I declare!  I thought Hunchie was out of his head.  How comes you are named after that horse, girl?”