"Feverish!" exclaimed Tom. "I'm so cold that I can't move. I'm frozen!" His teeth were chattering, and he commenced to shiver. "I'll be all right in a minute. Guess I'd better get up." He arose, then sat down abruptly on the log, for his legs felt too weak to support him. "I'm sorry, Marjorie," he said. "I'm pretty tired."
She watched him, too alarmed to speak. She exclaimed: "But you are feverish, Tom. Oh, I didn't know. I might have seen that you were sick…."
The rest of her words were lost in the great buzzing noise which filled his head. Everything turned black before him—black filled with a thousand shooting colors; then the world gave a vicious lurch which toppled him over. He awoke, flat on the ground, with Marjorie leaning above him, crying and dabbing his forehead with a wet handkerchief.
"Fainted!" he mumbled disgustedly. "Fool to faint!" He closed his eyes again to rid himself of dizziness. "Big baby! Sorry, Marjorie."
"You must come to the house, Tom," cried Marjorie. "It doesn't make any difference about Uncle. I'll tell him that he must take you in. He must!… he must!"
"No—be all right in a minute. Terribly hot! Take this cape off." He tried to get out of the cape, but she stopped him. "It's too hot," he protested, but he let her draw the cape up more tightly about him.
"Won't you let me take you to the house?" she begged.
"No—have to get back to the lines."
"But you can't, Tom. You're sick. It's the fever that makes you hot. Oh,
Tom…."
"Got to get back to the lines," he interrupted. "Start in a few minutes. I guess … sleep a little first. Mustn't be captured. You wake me up if anyone comes. Murdock's dogs…."