He seemed not to hear or care. In our desperation we slapped him and dragged him along between us. Finally his legs moved a little, and he began to step.
"Run, run with us!" Addison kept urging.
At last we got him going, although he shook so hard that he shook us with him. The exertion did him good. We hustled him along and, following the brook, came presently to a disused lumber road that led to the logging camp in the woods a few hundred yards from the shore of the pond. All three of us were panting hard when we reached it, but our wet clothes were frozen stiff.
We rushed Tom into the camp and, finding matches on a shelf behind the stovepipe, kindled a fire of such dry stuff as we found at hand. Then, as the place warmed up, we pulled off Tom's frozen outer coat and waistcoat, got the water out of his boots, and set him behind the stove.
Still he shook and could speak only with difficulty. We kept a hot fire and finally boiled water in a kettle and, gathering wintergreen leaves from a knoll outside the camp, made a hot tea for him.
At last we put him into the bunk and covered him as best we could with our own coats, which we did not miss, since the camp was now as hot as an oven. For more than an hour longer, however, his tremors continued in spite of the heat. Addison and I took turns rushing outside to cut wood from dry spruces to keep the stove hot. A little later, as I came in with an armful, I found Addison watching Tom.
"Sh!" he said. "He's asleep."
The afternoon was waning; a cold, windy night was coming on.
"What shall we do?" Addison whispered in perplexity. "I don't believe we ought to take him out; his clothes aren't dry yet. We shall have to stay here all night with him."
"But what will the folks at home think?" I exclaimed.