about two o'clock
`` Saddle your best nag for Philip , and let him ride to the school and tell the nurse to telephone for the best surgeon in the state , and that we shall bring Nucky to the hospital to-night on a stretcher . '' Philip dashed off , and the rest of us went to work to make a stretcher , with two poles and plenty of warm blankets . I know little about these matters , but I believed that the child could be taken easily and safely across the mountains , by relays of men , and that if I could once get him to the trained nurse she would manage to keep life in him . Then Blant fed us ; and about two o'clock we set forth down Trigger , Blant , Rich and two others bearing the stretcher , and four more young men going along to relieve them every half-hour . As we went slowly down Trigger , we saw a crowd gathered at Israel Cheever 's home , too . `` Dalt is bad wounded by the little chap 's rifle , '' said one of `` Uncle Billy 's boys '' , `` I wisht it had been Todd . '' When the stretcher changed hands , we carefully examined Nucky for any change in pulse or temperature .