“Head ache? Feel hot?” Douglas quizzed.
“Yuh. Head’s like to split. I’m hot all over, like.”
Another strangled cough, with its after-grimace of pain. Douglas looked below, found a couple of shelves forming natural steps, and descended. He laid a hand on Steve’s forehead. The hot skin seemed to burn him.
“H’m! I was afraid so,” he muttered. “Fever, headache, pleural pains, cough. H’m! Well, Steve, now listen. You’re sick. If you stay here you’ll be sicker. Now my place is sort of lonesome, and nobody calls on me; and the woods are right handy to the back door, so you could make a quick getaway if you had to; and it’s dry and——”
A determined shake of the head cut short his preamble.
“Marry told me,” the lad refused. “I ain’t a-goin’. Mebbe I’m sick. Mebbe I’ll die. But it’s all right. I’ll die by inches ’fore I’ll go wher’ I’ll git caught.”
“Don’t be a fool! What’s the good of——”
“Don’t say no more. I ain’t a-goin’. Ther’s things wuss’n me dyin’. Goin’ back to the pen’s one. Gittin’ my friends into trouble’s ’nother. I ain’t got but three friends into the world. Marry an’ you an’ Uncle Eb. I come awful nigh gittin’ two o’ ye into a mess t’other day. Them dicks’d make ye sweat blood if they knowed ye was a-helpin’ me. An’ I don’t danger ye no more.”
He writhed with another cough. Amazed by the unexpected chivalry of the hill boy, Douglas stood dumb. Presently Steve went on with the same pain-clipped sentences.
“’Sides, I can’t live into a house. Marry’ll tell ye that. I warn’t borned into a house. I was dropped into the woods like—like a wolf-pup. I can die like that same wolf: into the rocks or the trees. I ain’t a-dyin’ yet, anyways. An’ till I do die——