“Good boy! Good stuff, eh? Now don’t talk.”
Eagerly, ravenously, yet with no indecent haste, he ate the food given him, helping it down with cups of strong tea, pulling on the while dry clothing. Having eaten and got into dry things, he settled himself down into the big rocker. In a dozen breaths he was asleep, insensible, immovable, dead to his world.
The missionary smiled. “We will give him half an hour, Mother. He is dead beat.”
“Poor lad! How thin he is! And how terribly worn he looks! I am quite anxious about him, John. He can never go with you. Why not slip away now? You would be back before he wakes.”
“He has had a hard go, but he looks fit enough.”
“Why not let him sleep? He cannot go twenty miles.”
“We will give him half an hour. If he woke and found us gone you would have to tie him. He would follow us till he dropped.”
In consultation with Thomas the missionary studied the boy’s rough sketch.
“That is just beyond the Petite Traverse, Thomas, eh?”
Thomas pondered. “How long he marshe?”