“Do you think the boys will get well?” Ike asked, anxiously.
“Sure,” replied the Kid, cheerfully. “They will be up and around in a few days, but it’s going to take some time for all marks of the disease to disappear.”
Ike rolled over in his bunk and with a sigh of relief closed his eyes and was soon sound asleep, forgetting his troubles and sorrows and the short, anxious days and long, weary nights he had spent waiting on his stricken companions.
The Kid stood for a moment looking tenderly down on the pinched, tired, little face. “You poor, tuckered-out, little devil,” he muttered. “Hanged if I don’t believe you are the pluckiest one of the bunch, and that’s saying a whole lot.”
At the first hint of dawn, the Kid awoke Abe and set him to cooking breakfast. Ike he let sleep on until the meal was ready. As soon as it was finished, he gave instructions about administering the potato juice, and hitching up the boys’ team, as his own was sadly in need of rest, he skirted the mountain’s base and rounded into the cove beyond. His errand was much the same as that undertaken by Clay and Case upon another occasion. Common humanity demanded that the two men, bad though they were, should not lie exposed to the wolves. He soon reached the scene of the previous night’s encounter, where the three bodies lay as he had left them. He buried the two men in much the same way as Clay and Case had buried the murdered miner. This done, he turned his attention to the bear. It was Teddy alright, but not such a Teddy as had run away from his masters. This Teddy was thin and gaunt and it was evident from the ferociousness of his face that he had completely lapsed back again into the savagery of his brutal ancestors.
“Hum,” mused the Kid as he looked down at the savage face. “Just mad, hungry, and desperate enough to want to kill anything you met up against, wasn’t you, Teddy? You were just running amuck ready to kill anything and these two chaps happened to be the first you stumbled upon. Well, I reckon those boys on the Rambler will want to think of you as a hero rushing to the rescue at the last moment, and I reckon that it would be sorter mean to rob them of their faith and pride in you. But that look on your face would give you dead away, so I guess I’ll cover you up a bit. Anyway, you’re better deserving of a grave than that fellow Bill was, so here goes.”
Teddy Bear at last buried like a Christian, the Kid explored the clump of cottonwood, and as he had expected, came upon a snug log cabin with a big stone fire place. In one corner of it he came upon the stores stolen from the Rambler. These he loaded on the sled and turned his dogs back for the boat.
He was delighted with the improved appearance of his patients, who already were beginning to show signs of a speedy recovery. As soon as he ate the hearty dinner Ike had kept warm for him, he spread out his roll of blankets near the stove and stretched out. “Call me at dark if I don’t wake up before,” he directed Ike. “I am pretty well tuckered out. I’ve been thirty-six hours on my feet and my legs are beginning to get toothache.”
Dark came, but the Kid was sleeping so soundly that Ike would not awaken him until he had prepared the evening meal, fed the dogs, and brought in the night’s supply of wood for the Yukon stove. Even then it was difficult to awaken him from his slumbers.
“Gee,” he exclaimed, as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “I thought I had only just got asleep, and here it is after dark. How are the sick boys coming on?”