“Ha, ha, ha!” Jack laughed loudly.
“Here, stop that cackling,” ordered Reade in the same low voice that he had been using. “Let’s get away from the chief’s tent. We’ll disturb him with our noise.”
Dr. Gitney, entering the big tent five minutes later, found Mr. Thurston very much awake, for he had heard the low-voiced conversation outside the tent. Mr. Thurston was not quite as ill as was Blaisdell, and had not as yet reached the stage of delirium.
“Doctor, I want you to summon the engineer corps here,” begged the patient.
“When you’re better,” replied the doctor, with a hand on the sick man’s pulse.
“Doc, you’d better let me have my way,” insisted Mr. Thurston in a weak voice. “If you don’t, you’ll make me five times more ill than I am at present.”
Watching the fever glow in the man’s face deepen, and feeling the pulse go up several beats per minute, Dr. Gitney replied:
“There, there, Thurston. Be good, and I’ll let you have three minutes with your engineers.”
“That’s all I ask,” murmured the sick man eagerly.
Dr. Gitney went outside and rounded them up. All were present except ’Gene Black, who, according to Matt Rice, had taken a little walk outside of camp.