Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/136

 and stepped up to the desk—it was Doctor Kreelmar, the prison physician. Warden Rand glanced sharply at the other's face before he spoke.

"I was just going to send for you, doctor," he said. "Well?"

Doctor Kreelmar, a short, nervous, little black-haired man of fifty, shook his head.

"It's not well at all," he returned bluntly. "It's—hum!—infernally bad. Wenger shot two dead besides Blackie Lunn and—"

"I know that," interposed the warden tersely. "What about the rest?"

"Scotty can't live, not a ghost of a chance, Wenger's bullet touched his left lung—Wenger'll go out too. As for the others, I never saw anything like it in all my experience—some of them are battered as though they had been literally struck with a trip-hammer, and two of them have their ribs broken, simply crushed in from that chap's hug."

"You mean?" inquired the warden.

"Yes, of course—Varge—Number Seven-seventy-seven," said the doctor. "Rand, that man is wonderful"—Doctor Kreelmar drew in his breath. "Wonderful!" he repeated. "I wouldn't have believed it if any one had told me and I hadn't seen him professionally myself."

"Will he live?" Warden Rand demanded.

"Live!" exclaimed Doctor Kreelmar. "Yes; he'll live—but no other man would with the wounds he's got. He's been stabbed in a dozen places with all sorts of tools, and his head's laid open for three inches to the skull. Of course, he's in bad shape and will need care.