"It is Leon, as sure as the world!" cried Oscar, who was almost beside himself with excitement. "Doctor, this is a friend and schoolmate of mine, and he is sick. Won't you do something for him?"
"Did you call him Leon?" asked the surgeon, stepping up and putting his hand under the boy's arm. "Then he must be that runaway my steward was telling me about. Ah!" he added, as Oscar nodded his head to him. "If that's the case, you can do more for him than I can."
Leon was at once assisted into the surgeon's quarters and placed on a sofa.
The doctor felt his pulse, while Oscar knelt beside him, and rested his arm over Leon's shoulder, as if to assure him of protection.
"What's the matter with him, sir?" he asked.
"Oh, I've got something that's catching," sobbed Leon, "and I'm to be kicked out of the fort. The trader told me so. He wouldn't let me stay about where he was."
Oscar and the surgeon looked at each other in surprise, and the latter said:
"Why, my young friend, you're homesick. There's nothing else the matter with you."
"But that's bad enough," said Leon, who was, nevertheless, greatly encouraged. "I shall never see my home again."
"Yes, you will," exclaimed Oscar. "You can start to-morrow, if you are strong enough to sit on a stage-coach."