“Hello, Tilly,” chuckled Toppy deliriously. It was quite in keeping with things that Tilly, the squaw, should be holding his head and feeding him in the middle of the night. He drank with the avidity of a man parched and starving, and the hot broth pleasantly soothed him as it ran down his throat.
“More!” he said, and Tilly gave him more.
“Good fellow, Tilly,” he murmured. “Good medicine. Who told you?”
“Snow-Burner,” grunted Tilly, laying his head on the pillow. “He send me. Sleep um now.”
“Sure,” sighed Toppy, and promptly fell back into his moaning, feverish slumber.
CHAPTER IX—A FRESH START
When he awoke again to clear consciousness, it was morning. The sun which came in through the east window shone in his eyes and lighted up the room. Toppy lay still. He was quite content to lie so. An inexplicable feeling of peace and comfort ruled in every inch of his being. The bored, heavy feeling with which for a long time past he had been in the custom of facing a new day was absolutely gone. His tongue was cool; there was none of the old heavy blood-pressure in his head; his nerves were absolutely quiet. Something had happened to him. Toppy was quite conscious of the change, though he was too comfortable to do more than accept his peaceful condition as a fact.
“Ho, hum! I feel like a new man,” he murmured drowsily. “I wonder—ow!”
He had stretched himself leisurely and thus became conscious that his left ankle was bandaged and sore. His cry brought old Campbell into the room—Campbell solemnly arrayed in a long-tailed suit of black, white collar, black tie, spick and span, with beard and hair carefully washed and combed.
“Hello!” gasped Toppy sleepily. “Where you going—funeral?”