"I didn't ask that. This is a lone hand I'm playin', doctor, and if I'm euchred, tain't your fault. How soon?"
"I should say," said Dr. Duchesne, with professional caution, "that if no bad symptoms supervene" (he made here a half habitual but wholly ineffectual dive for Jack's pulse), "you might go in a week."
"I must go now!"
Dr. Duchesne bent over his patient. He was a quick as well as a patiently observing man, and he saw something in Jack's face that no one else had detected. Seeing this he said, "You can go now, at a great risk—the risk of your life."
"I'll take it!" said Mr. Hamlin, promptly. "I've been playin' agin odds," he added, with a faint but audacious smile, "for the last six months, and it's no time to draw out now. Go on, tell Pete to pack up and get me ready."
"Where are you going?" asked the doctor, quietly, still gazing at his patient.
"To!—blank!" said Mr. Hamlin, impulsively. Then recognising the fact that in view of his having travelling companions, some more definite and practicable locality was necessary, he paused a moment, and said, "To the Mission of San Antonio."
"Very well," said the doctor, gravely.
Strange to say, whether from the doctor's medication, or from the stimulus of some reserved vitality hitherto unsuspected, Mr. Hamlin from that moment rallied. The preparations for his departure were quickly made, and in a few hours he was ready for the road.
"I don't want to have anybody cacklin' around me," he said, in deprecation of any leave-taking. "I leave the board, they can go on with the game."