“Hello!” Tom cried. “Call off your dog; we're friends.”
Then a tousled, ragged, gaunt-limbed figure, emaciated with hunger, wild eyed with fever, dragged itself from the sheltering brush, gave one long look at the stalwart strangers, and fell back on the stony ground in a dead faint, while the dog, rushing forward with the courage of a starved wolf, planted himself before the corpse-like form and defied them to touch it.
They fought off the animal, brought water from the lake and revived the man. A dram from Tom's flask stimulated him, whereupon he sat up and began to chatter incoherently, thanks to God and wild exclamations about some hidden treasure mingling with such plaintive cries as “She'll be all right now!” and “Mebbe she'll forgive her old dad!” making up the whole of his ceaseless talk.
“He's clean crazy!” was Cooper's opinion.
“Yes,” Tom assented, “but it is fever and famine. Couldn't you shoot a rabbit or something? Then I could make him a stew. Try it.”
But all that Cooper could quickly find to kill were three mountain jays, which were converted into a broth, thickened with the dust of flour that remained. A little tea was also found in the sick man's pack, and this was brewed for him. Then Cooper volunteered to go back to their own camp and bring over more food and Tom's little medicine case.
The next day he fetched the rest of their luggage, and in the afternoon shot a deer. So they encamped here beside the lake and nursed the old fellow until his fever subsided and the delirium had ceased to a great extent. Then by easy stages, partly carrying him on a stretcher, partly assisting him to walk, they managed to take him back to Crimson Camp and gave him a bed in Tom's cabin.
But the strain of this effort had been too much for the aged and feeble frame. No sooner was the excitement of the march at an end than a relapse occurred, and for a fortnight the old man hovered on the edge of death; skill and care seemed to conquer, however, and one morning peace came to the tortured brain and the old prospector began to get better.