Barefooted, crawling aimlessly about on his hands and knees, wagging his head from side to side and mumbling, was Tusk—in truth, enough like a bear to excuse the sheriff's former uncertainty. He seemed to have no intimation of the watchers who had, in their surprise, advanced far enough to be in full view. Indeed, twice he crawled within ten feet of them, all the while wagging his head in a way that, were he able to see at all, must surely have disclosed them.
"Is he drunk?" Dale whispered, but Jess solemnly shook his head.
"Nope, he ain't drunk—leastways, that ain't the main trouble! He's plumb crazy with a fever, an' damn nigh starved to death! Look at his face an' cracked lips! I don't know as we'd orter take 'im down to town, Dale;—maybe it's ketchin'!"
"Not take him! Not take him!" Dale cried in an angry voice. "Well, I ain't afraid of nothin' ketchin'! He won't get away from me again, I tell you!"
"Who said I was afeerd of ketchin' somethin'?" the sheriff answered, with a black frown. "I was thinkin' of other folks! Didn't you never try thinkin' a leetle bit of other folks, jest to see how it 'ud feel, Dale?"
A deep growl from Tusk made them turn again. He was quite still now, and listening; while his eyes, seeing but not seeing, stared at them, and his brows puckered as though trying to call back some hazy memory.
"Good Lawd," Jess whispered, "look at his foot an' leg! It must be blood-pisen, or gang-green, or somethin' like that, Dale!—that, an' a burnin' fever, an' not any too much sense at best, poh devil! Why, he don't know whar he's at! Tusk," the tender-hearted officer stepped out and called to him, "we've come up to help you some!"
A spasm of terror crossed the unfortunate man's face; but then he gave a curious sort of laugh and began to crawl awkwardly toward the point of the spur.
"Set down thar, Tusk," the sheriff called again, this time making ready to follow. "Set down, now, till I git out to you!"
Tusk laughed. A child crawling over a nursery floor might so have laughed if playfully chased by its nurse. But this misshapen hulk of humanity did not possess even the wisdom of a child. He only laughed and crawled faster, looking back with an expression of mischievous cunning and extreme delight.