"I think I shall be able to get the drugs, senor. Some of the peons must keep them in their houses."
"You must get them, as I said. Now, make good time. I will await your return."
Then Tom drew Harry aside, describing the finding of the fever-stricken stranger.
"Who on earth can he be?" wondered Harry, curiously. "And what can he be doing in this out of the way part of the world?"
"That's his own secret," retorted Tom, dryly; and the man is bent on keeping it. There are only two things that we need to know—one that he is ill, and the other that he is very plainly a gentleman, who would be incapable of repaying our kindness with any treachery. What do you say, Harry? Shall we bring him here and look after him?"
"That's for you to say, Tom."
"It's half for you to say, Harry. Half the risk is also yours, if anything goes wrong."
"Tom, I feel the same way that you do about it," Harry declared, his eyes shining brightly. "A fellow creature in distress is one whom we can't pass by. We can't leave him to die. Such a thing would haunt me as long as I live. When do you want to go after him?"
"Just as soon as it's dark," Reade replied. "That will be within the hour, for here in the tropics night comes soon after the sun sets."
When the time came Tom and Harry left their tent, strolling slowly. It was very dark and the young engineers listened intently as they went along. They found their stranger and lifted him from the ground. He was so slight and frail that he proved no burden whatever. Apparently without having been seen by any one Reade and Hazelton bore their man back to camp.