"Now, I want all your handkerchiefs to make bandages. Thanks! Charlotte, pull her foot just a trifle more, no--her toes should be up--so! That's better. I'm sorry to hurt you so dreadfully, Miss Roberts! I shall very soon have finished. There! I think those bandages are right. Give her some more water, Louise, quick!" Poor Miss Roberts had indeed nearly fainted again with pain, but she recovered herself, and even smiled as she thanked her helpers. "I've spoilt the excursion!" she murmured. "What's to be done next? Can we carry her?" asked Hilda. "Better not try. The quieter that leg is kept the better. She ought to be lifted on a stretcher." "There isn't even a farm near here." "I know. I think for the present she's best where she is, while some of you go to the station at Riggness for help. Possibly they may have a railway ambulance, or at any rate they could bring a door." "Is there a doctor there?" "I'm afraid not, it's only a tiny village, but the stationmaster would telegraph to Stedburgh for one. Perhaps he could come by motor, if there's no train." It was amazing what thoughtfulness and self-reliance had come to Gwen with the emergency. She made her plans and arrangements as calmly as if she were accustomed to deal every day with accidents. No one questioned her authority, and all were willing to do what she told them. Iris Watson and two others who were judged the quickest walkers volunteered to go to the station for help, and they listened attentively while Gwen gave instructions as to what they were to ask the stationmaster to send. "It's such a comfort you know!" said Hilda. "I wish I'd learnt ambulance." It seemed an interminable age to poor Miss Roberts and the girls before a railway porter and two labourers who had been working on the line, arrived with a stretcher, which fortunately was kept in the inspector's office at Riggness. It was a tedious slow journey along the shore, and up to the station. The patient was nearly worn out by the time they placed her in the waiting-room, and was thankful to have the cup of tea which the stationmaster's wife brought her. A doctor arrived from Stedburgh half an hour afterwards, armed with proper splints and bandages, and he carefully examined and reset the broken limb. "I must thoroughly congratulate the young lady who contributed first aid," he said. "She managed most skilfully. This would have been a serious thing but for her prompt measures. If the bone had been jolted about before it was put in splints, the consequences might have been permanent lameness or even loss of life. I wish it were obligatory for everybody to study ambulance." The doctor took Miss Roberts back to her home in Stedburgh in his own car, and the girls followed by the next train, all equally anxious to get away from Riggness. They were much distressed about their teacher; the excursion had been a fiasco, and the whole party felt limp and out of spirits, like sheep without a shepherd.