He told me what proportion he desired his mother and his sisters to have—"if I ever got out safely with the gold"—and that the remainder was to be given to Fanny Hume, the lady to whom he was engaged.
He bade me put all these things down in my notebook, saying also that he should write letters to them all, "in case of accidents." He dwelt for some time on these most melancholy topics, and I expect would have gone on still longer had I not diverted his thoughts into another channel.
I got on to the subject of the value of the gold we had, and asked his opinion of the way we were to proceed to secure our claim, so that we might return next season and work it.
He told me again all he knew on the subject, declared that we should have to hire men at Dawson, or at Forty Mile, or even at Circle City, to work for us; and indeed for an hour or two he talked on very much in his old way, full of information and cleverness, and quite excited about the fortune we had made.
He fell asleep at last with a cheerful look on his face, after having by my persuasion smoked a pipe with me.
I rolled myself in my blankets then, and with some hopefulness and a quieter spirit I too went to sleep.
Several times I awoke and put on firing. Meade was always sleeping peacefully, but towards morning, just as grey light was filtering through our window, I was aroused by his groans. He told me that he was suffering acutely, that the pain in his leg was maddening, that he was sure all had gone wrong there. He begged me to remove the bandages, declaring that he knew they were no longer needed. "Either the bones have joined now, or they never will," said he. "If they have not, then I shall never get better, and if I go on any longer in this agony I shall die surely."
Perplexed, bewildered, terribly afraid of doing wrong, yet quite unable to withstand his entreaties, I consented in the end to do as he desired.
He had already thrown the blankets from him, and was tossing his unhurt leg and arms about most dangerously. His face was flushed, he was continually crying out for water, and I, even with my small experience, knew that he was in a high fever, of the seriousness of which I was conscious.
I loosed the fastenings of the long strip of wood. This did not appease him. He exclaimed that he was on fire, that the pain was excruciating. He became angry with me because I hesitated to take off the splints. He talked wildly, incoherently, madly, and then began tearing at the bandages himself, so I undid the splints and took them off, exposing his bare leg, and then I no longer wondered that he suffered as he did.