“He’s thinking of the Indians,” remarked the captain, sorrowfully; “the confounded red-skins!”
“I told you he stole it all. Will you harass me into my grave? A set of vampires, sucking the life-blood of an honest man!”
“Now he wanders,” said the captain; and, sending for the surgeon, the latter opened his medicine case, and, lighting a match to read the labels on his vials, administered an opiate, and the sufferer sank into a troubled stupor.
“Ah!” whispered the mother to Tom, “it is not the savages that disturb his mind so; it’s the old agony of a wounded spirit.”
About noon, the next day, they came in sight of the fort. How welcome the frowning walls to the weary women and children! How sublime seemed the national flag, floating proudly on the breeze, symbol of a united sovereignty of states, powerful to protect its citizens on the ocean and the land, in the teeming city, and in the wilds of the wilderness!
General McElroy received the settlers in the kindest manner, causing them to feel at once that they were among friends. Airy, quiet apartments 231 were assigned to the wounded man and his household, and the ladies of the garrison vied with each other in their attentions to him and his stricken family. Often would Mrs. McElroy come in and sit by Mr. Jones, that his wife might get some rest. With her and her husband Tom had become a great favorite, and they entertained a high respect for the mother.
The squatter’s life in the open air, roaming the prairies, tended to build up for him a healthy physical organization, favorable to the healing of the wound; and as this progressed, the doctor marvelled that he did not get stronger. He was strangely liable to delirious attacks, and opiates gradually lost their influence over him.
One day the surgeon entered as his patient, wildly raving, was exclaiming, with great vehemence,–
“I tell you, again, that I have nothing to pay with, and you will give me no chance to earn. O, what a load to carry! Debt! debt! debt! Shall I never find rest?” Then, in a moment more, his thoughts relapsing to another subject, he murmured, “What did the preacher say? ’Come–unto–me–and I will–give you rest;’ yes, that is what I want. O, if only I could come!”
The surgeon watched him through the delirium, and said,– 232