"Only since last night. You've had a fever."
"Where is my dog?"
"Dog?" said the other. "I never knew you had one."
Harry's lips set bitterly. It had fared more hardly, then, than he. It had been a ready object for the crowd to wreak their hatred upon, because it belonged to him—because it was Hugh Stires' dog! He leaned back a moment against the cabin wall, with closed eyes, while Prendergast stirred the heating mixture, which gave forth a savory aroma.
"Is this your cabin, my friend?"
The figure bending over the hearth straightened itself with a jerk and the blinking yellow eyes looked hard at him. Prendergast came close to the bunk.
"That's the game you played in the town," he said with a surly sneer. "It's all right for those that take it in, but you needn't try to bamboozle me, pretending you don't know your own claim and cabin! I'm no such fool!"
A dull flush came to Harry's face. Here was a page from that iniquitous past that faced him. His own cabin? And his own claim? Well, why not?
"You are mistaken," he said calmly. "I am not pretending. I can not remember you."