freely, but its application did not produce any immediate effect.
Realizing that a surgeon should be summoned at once, the boy moved
toward the telephone.

However, he found himself unable to bring himself to the point of
communicating with the surgeon he had in mind. Questions would be
asked, and he would be suspected, and the intervention of the Boy
Scouts could do him no good. He understood now that his every hope
for the future centered in the little lad who was hurrying through
the night in quest of Ned Nestor, his patrol leader. If these boys
of the Wolf Patrol should decide against him, and the injured man
should not recover, there was the end of life and of hope. And only
an hour ago he had planned the wonderful excursion down the Rio Grande.
That time seemed farther away to him now than the birth of Adam.

And mixed with the horror of the situation was the mystery of it!
What motive could have actuate the criminal? Had the blow been
struck by a personal enemy, in payment of a grudge, or had robbery
been the motive? Surely not the latter, for the injured man's valuable
watch and chain, his diamonds, were in place. Stocks and bonds, good
in the hands of any holder, lay on the floor in front of the open safe.
A robber would have taken both bonds and jewelry.

The one reasonable theory was that the act had been committed by some
person in quest of papers kept in the office files. The manner in
which the desk and safe had been ransacked showed that a thorough
search for something had been made. Directly the boy heard Mr.
Cameron speaking and hastened to his side. If he had regained
consciousness, the nightmare of suspicion would pass away.