“I never thought ye had the temper to git somebody to split yer head,” said he.  “Where’d ye collect it?”

“Nowhere,” Joe answered, dropping weakly on the bed.  “It doesn’t amount to anything.”

“Well, I’ll take just a look fer myself,” said the red-bearded man, rising.  “And I’ve no objection to not knowin’ how ye come by it.  Ye’ve always been the great one fer keepin’ yer mysteries to yerself.”

He unwound the handkerchief and removed it from Joe’s head gently.  “Whee!” he cried, as a long gash was exposed over the forehead.  “I hope ye left a mark somewhere to pay a little on the score o’ this!”

Joe chuckled and dropped dizzily back upon the pillow.  “There was another who got something like it,” he gasped, feebly; “and, oh, Mike, I wish you could have heard him going on!  Perhaps you did—­it was only three miles from here.”

“Nothing I’d liked better!” said the other, bringing a basin of clear water from a stand in the corner.  “It’s a beautiful thing to hear a man holler when he gits a grand one like ye’re wearing to-night.”

He bathed the wound gently, and hurrying from the room, returned immediately with a small jug of vinegar.  Wetting a rag with this tender fluid, he applied it to Joe’s head, speaking soothingly the while.

“Nothing in the world like a bit o’ good cider vinegar to keep off the festerin’.  It may seem a trifle scratchy fer the moment, but it assassinates the blood-p’ison.  There ye go!  It’s the fine thing fer ye, Joe—­what are ye squirmin’ about?”

“I’m only enjoying it,” the boy answered, writhing as the vinegar worked into the gash.  “Don’t you mind my laughing to myself.”

“Ye’re a good one, Joe!” said the other, continuing his ministrations.  “I wisht, after all, ye felt like makin’ me known to what’s the trouble.  There’s some of us would be glad to take it up fer ye, and—­”

“No, no; it’s all right.  I was somewhere I had no business to be, and I got caught.”

“Who caught ye?”

“First, some nice white people”—­Joe smiled his distorted smile—­“and then a low-down black man helped me to get away as soon as he saw who it was.  He’s a friend of mine, and he fell down and tripped up the pursuit.”

“I always knew ye’d git into large trouble some day.”  The red-bearded man tore a strip from an old towel and began to bandage the boy’s head with an accustomed hand.  “Yer taste fer excitement has been growin’ on ye every minute of the four years I’ve known ye.”

“Excitement!” echoed Joe, painfully blinking at his friend.  “Do you think I’m hunting excitement?”