"Doc!"
John turned his head.
"Doc, fur hones'! Tell me! Don't be skeered it'll finish me right off. Now, while the woman 'n' the chil'n 're gone, tell me!"
A beam of pity struggled to the brown, tired eyes of the man sitting above him. After all this was his brother—this thing in its filth and misery and callousness had had a soul breathed into it by a common God years ago. Should he not feel compassion for anyone whose feet had come so near the brink of the Valley of the Shadow? He did feel compassion; the wave which swept him as the pleading, untaught tones came to him was almost protecting. His brother! Though one's feet had never left the shallows, and the other's, not long before, had fared through strange and awful deeps where dreadful monsters lurked in the guise of innocence and beauty so rare that it was blasting.
With a quick movement John leaned down and took the hard, seamed hand.
"You haven't got even chances," he said. "I can't promise anything but this: I'll do for you what I'd do for the richest man in Macon!"
"I never heerd sich talk!" exclaimed Scribbens. "What sort o' man air ye?"
"A pretty poor sort, but I've studied medicine mighty hard. You've got to pull like blazes to get through. Can you do it. Keep a stout heart, I mean, and believe all the time you're coming out all right?"
"I dunno. I hurt pow'ful, 'n' I'm burnt to scorchin'."
A paroxysm of abject fear seized him, and he pulled the quilt, full of holes, up over his head to hide the wild expression on his face. He lay there and shook with dread—dread of dying—dread of the vast unknown, and of the punishment he felt surely was awaiting him. John went on with his work. The packages were done up and the medicine case snapped to and placed on the floor. Still the coverlet was convulsed with erratic movements. Directly the man jerked the quilt from his face, showing it all a-sweat with anguish.