But Johnnie saw no one, so completely were his thoughts taken up. Of course Father Pat was sick. That was why he had not been back to the flat. Was there, the boy wondered, anything a scout could do for the beloved priest? Johnnie thought of all those instructions in the Handbook which concerned the aiding and saving of others. "Oh, I want t' help him!" he cried, and in his eagerness forged ahead of the old lady, whereupon she poked him sharply with the stick. "Slow! Slow!" she ordered, breathing open-mouthed. The distance seemed endless. Johnnie began to fear that he might not reach the Father before he died. "Oh, all that fightin' was bad for him!" he concluded regretfully. "That's what's the matter! It wore him out! I wish Mrs. Kukor didn't go for him! But, oh, he mustn't die! He mustn't! He _mustn't_!" And yet that was precisely what Father Pat was about to do. When Johnnie had climbed the steps of a brownstone house and been admitted by a strange priest; and between long portieres had entered a high, dim room where there was a wide, white bed, he realized the worst at once. For even to young eyes that had never before looked upon death, it was plain that a great, a solemn, and a strangely terrible change had come into that revered, homely, kindly face. Its smile was not gone--not altogether; but still showed faintly around the big, tender Irish mouth. But, ah, the dear, red hair was wet with mortal sweat, and lay in thin, trailing wisps upon a brow uncommonly white. Yes, Father Pat had been right; the bridges made for him by the elderly dentist "who needed the work" were to outlast the necessity for them. And the big, young, broad-shouldered soldier-priest was going out even before little, feeble, old Grandpa! "Father Pat!" whispered the boy. The green eyes, moving more slowly than was their wont, traveled inquiringly from place to place till they found their object, then fixed themselves lovingly upon Johnnie's face. Next, out stole a hand, feebly searching for another. "Little--golden--thing!" Ah, how hard he was breathing! "If I could jus' give him _my_ breath!" thought Johnnie; "'r my lungs!" He took the searching hand, but turned his face away. There was a small, round table beside the bed. Upon it were some flowers in a glass, a prayer book, a rosary, a goblet of water, a fan. Mechanically he counted the things--over and over. He was dry-eyed. He felt not the least desire to weep. The grief he was enduring was too poignant for tears. It was as if he had been slashed from forehead to knees with a sword. "I'm not actin' like a scout," he thought suddenly. And forced himself to turn again to that friend so heart-rendingly changed. Then aloud, and striving to speak evenly, "Father Pat, y're not goin' t' die, are y'? No, y're not goin' t' die!"