He held out a hand to welcome Hugh.
"Oh! I'm mighty glad you've come, fellows, I can tell you," he told them, with a tremor in his voice.

"I've had a rotten time of it all around, and suffered terribly.

You see, I made a fool of myself, and tripped over a vine, so that I was thrown into a gully, with my left leg under me.

Snapped both bones, he says, just above the ankle, and a fine time I've got ahead of me this winter, with no skating, hockey, or anything worth living for.

But then it might have been worse, because my neck is worth more to me than my ankle.