They dashed down the hill at a gallop, and up the other side, and drew in at the Ware gate to find the doctor, his razor in one hand and his face covered with lather, trying to see from the veranda what had happened. They called to him, “A steamboat explosion!” and he rushed back into his office, to reappear in a moment with his surgical case and medicine bag, wiping the lather from his face with his handkerchief. A swarm of rowboats was already picking up survivors from the water, and the “Northern Belle,” sure now of all the traffic there would be that morning, slowed down and stood by until her decks were crowded with the wounded, burnt, or half-drowned sufferers. Dr. Ware found a rowboat to take him out to the Belle, still waiting in mid-stream. “Come with me, Rhoda,” he said. “You can help.” When the girl cast her eyes over the deck, as she stepped on board, she shrank back, appalled and sickened by the ghastly sight. But with a tightening of the lips she drew herself together and went to work. Presently, as she was trying to quiet an hysterical woman, her father came close and drew her aside. “Rhoda,” he said in a low voice, “Jeff Delavan has just been brought on board.” She turned pale and swayed toward him and he grasped her arm. “Steady, girl,” he encouraged. “He’s alive, but unconscious. As far as I can see now I don’t think he is seriously injured. Your mother would probably want him taken to our house.” She straightened, with a quick grip upon herself. “Yes, father, of course she would--and I, too. Oh, he shall go nowhere else!” CHAPTER X So it happened that when Jefferson Delavan came back to consciousness Mrs. Ware was bending over him, extreme anxiety in her look. Dr. Ware had found that his manifest injuries consisted in a broken rib and some burns upon his arms. But an accidental blow while clinging to a plank in the water had rendered him unconscious and he had been rescued barely in time to prevent him from slipping off and sinking to his death. Over the possible results of this blow the physician was anxious. Everything would depend, he had told his wife and Rhoda, upon how the young man came out of the oblivion. He had warned them that it might be with wandering wits, and in that case only time could tell how severe, possibly even how permanent, would be the results of the accident. Delavan stirred and moaned slightly and Mrs. Ware, bending over him with her fingers upon his pulse, saw that his eyelids fluttered. “Rhoda!” she called, her voice a-tremble and sinking to a whisper, “he’s coming to!” Rhoda, leaning across the foot of the bed upon her clenched hands, was watching his face with intent eyes.