“Yes, Jem.”
“Don’t ask me to tell you no more, my lad. I’m too badly, just now. Think you could go to sleep?”
“I don’t know, Jem. I don’t think so.”
“I’d say, let’s try and get ourselves loose, and set to and get away, for I don’t think anybody’s watching us; but I couldn’t go two steps, I know. Could you run away by yourself?”
“I don’t know,” said Don. “I’m not going to try.”
“Well, but that’s stupid, Mas’ Don, when you might go somewhere, p’r’aps, and get help.”
“Where, Jem?”
“Ah!” said the poor fellow, after a pause, “I never thought about that.”
They lay still under the blinking stars, with the wind blowing chill from the icy mountains; and the feeling of bitter despondency which hung over Don’s spirit seemed to grow darker. His head throbbed violently, and a dull numbing pain was in his wrists and ankles. Then, too, as he opened his lips, he felt a cruel, parching, feverish thirst, which seemed by degrees to pass away as he listened to the low moaning, and then for a few minutes he lost consciousness.
But it was only to start into wakefulness again, and stare wildly at the faintly-seen fence of the great pah, right over his head, and through which he could see the twinkling of a star.