"Don't cry. It won't do any good. I used to cry when I was a boy and thought of poor, dear father."
"Say it again. Say, 'poor, dear father,' once more," and the white, haggard face lifted itself slowly up and crept on until it lay beside the feverish one upon the pillow.
Thus it was the father met his son, and all through the afternoon he sat by him, soothing him to sleep, and then bending fondly over him to watch him while he slept.
"He is some like Ellen," he whispered, "but more like me, as I was in my early manhood, and yet, as he lies sleeping, there is a look about him that I have often seen on Ellen's face when she was asleep. Darling wife, we little thought when we talked together of our child, that the first time I beheld him would be beneath the California skies, and he a bearded man."
Then, as he remembered what Walter had said of the hair, he opened the lid of the trunk, and hunted until he found Jessie's raven curl, and the longer, browner tress. He knew in a moment that it was Ellen's hair,—and kissing it reverently he twined it about his fingers just as he used to when the soft eyes it shaded looked lovingly into his.
"Walter's is like it," he said, stealing to the bedside, and laying it among the brown locks of his son. "Bless my boy,—bless my boy!" and going back again, he placed the lock of hair beside this jet black ringlet wondering who Jessie was, and why she had married another.
It was growing dark when Walter awoke, but between himself and the window he saw the outline of his friend, and knowing he was not alone, fell away again to sleep, resting better that night than he had done before since the commencement of his illness.
For many days Captain Murdock watched by him, and when at last the danger was passed, and Walter restored to consciousness, he was the first to know it, and bending over him he breathed a prayer of thanksgiving for the restoration of his son.
"Who are you?" Walter asked after objects and events had assumed a rational form. "Who are you, and why have you been so kind to me, as I am sure you have?"
"I am called Captain Murdock," was the answer "This is my room; the one I have occupied for a long, long time. I left the city some weeks ago on business and during my absence you came. As the house was full the landlord put you in here for one night, but in the morning you were too ill to be moved. You have been very sick, and as your nurse was none of the best, I dismissed her and took care of you myself, because if I had a son in a strange land I should want some one to care for him, and I only did what your father would wish me to do. You have a father, young man?"