“We’ll only be too glad to help, Miss,” said Amos, quickly, without giving his cousin the first chance to say anything. This was a field where possibly he excelled Jack in proficiency, for he had had more practical experience with motors than the Western lad. If it had been anything connected with horses now, Amos would have known that he must take a back seat, for the ranch boy was quite at home along those lines.
For once, Jack was ready and willing to allow his chum to work while he looked on. He had seen the nurse staring hard at that small emblem of the country across the sea which Amos so proudly carried on his coat lapel.
“You are really and truly Americans?” she remarked, turning to Jack.
[172]
“Oh! yes, we belong over there, and have come across because we had a very important errand,” he told her. “We were in England only recently, and met your Lord Kitchener, to whom we had a letter of introduction from the father of my cousin, who used to be great friends with him long ago out in Egypt or somewhere. He gave us a paper that is turning out to be a great help in our search.”
Amos was working busily at the tire, with the Belgian youth to assist him; but he evidently heard every word they said, for he turned to nod his head at this juncture and remark:
“Your K. of K. is the finest gentleman ever, for he fixed us out, and right now we’re hoping to be able to find my brother before a great while. Jack, you explain about it, won’t you, please, while I knuckle down to this job.”
“Then you are looking for some one who has been caught over here by the war breaking out?” suggested the nurse. “There are thousands in that same trouble. I myself have met many, and we try to assist them as far as our limited means[173] will allow. Oh! if there ever was a time when I wished for a thousand arms it is in these terrible days and nights. For many weeks each day has brought new hosts of poor wounded fellows. I sometimes think the better part of our young manhood will be cut off if this thing continues much longer. But you did not answer my question.”
“Well, we are looking for some one,” Jack admitted, “though he was not caught in Belgium by the breaking out of the war. On the contrary, this brother of my chum, who is about ten years his senior, must have offered his services to your Government as an experienced aviator, and was accepted because the supply of air pilots just then was not equal to the demand. We have reason to believe he has been serving in that capacity, and done a few pretty daring things along his line of scouting and the like.”
“I have met with dozens of aviators,” she told him. “In fact, for a time it happened that I was attached to a corps particularly assigned to[174] cases of necessity among the pilots of aeroplanes; for you must know they frequently meet with serious accidents aside from the dangers they run while over the enemy’s lines.”
Again did Amos’ head bob up.
“Well, I declare, that’s queer,” he was saying. “I wonder now if you ever did happen to meet my brother.”
“What was his name, for you haven’t even told me yours yet?” the nurse continued, as she gave the boy one of her smiles.
“My name is Amos Turner, and his is Frank, but we’ve learned that when he enlisted he went as Frank Bradford.”
The nurse started, and looked more sharply at the speaker.
“Frank Bradford, you say?” she remarked, quickly.
“Yes, and it’s plain to be seen from the way you act you’ve heard about him,” continued Amos, his interest growing by leaps and bounds.
“I have even met him,” the Red Cross nurse announced. “Yes, more than that, it was my[175] privilege to attend to his trifling hurts after he had returned from one of his most remarkable forays over many miles of hostile territory, doing an immense amount of damage to the German concentration camps, stores, railway stations, and Zeppelin hangars.”
Amos colored with pride, for it must be remembered that it was a Turner, and his own brother, of whom this praise was being spoken.
“We read accounts of that long flight he made that left a trail of alarm behind,” said Jack, “but there was no name mentioned. We only heard this very day through a British colonel that it was Frank Bradford.”
Amos left his work for a minute. He was so excited he felt he must find out a little more about Frank from the Red Cross attendant.
“How was he injured, Nurse?” he asked.
“The wings of his plane were fairly riddled with shrapnel,” she explained, “but he had escaped all that in a miraculous way. In fact, his only injuries consisted of a few minor hurts on[176] one of his arms, where he had scraped it in falling, after he got back into our lines.”
“Was it his left arm?” asked Amos, quickly, and although the nurse may have possibly imagined this a foolish question, she answered it after a second’s thought.
“His left arm—yes, that’s the one he had injured, I remember.”
“My brother Frank had some tattoo work on his forearm,” explained Amos. “It was done by an old sailor he knew, and whose tales of worldwide adventure Frank was never tired of hearing. Can you remember, Nurse, whether the Frank Bradford you attended was marked with colored India inks—he had an eagle stamped there on his arm, a real screaming American eagle?”
“Yes, it was an eagle, I remember now,” she affirmed. “He laughed when I told him it was a shame to allow himself to be mutilated that way, and said he had dreamed of being a sailor some day, and visiting every quarter of the globe.[177] He also told me he had been around pretty much during the last few years.”
Amos exchanged pleased glances with his cousin.
“How strange it seems, Jack, that we should meet two persons in one day who have known Frank. The tattoo business tells the story good enough for m............