“I wish him joy of his charge,” snorted the doctor, turning again to the bed, where Bruce had already passed into delirium.
The memory of that vigil was like a horrible nightmare for months. Moore lay on the floor and slept. The Duke rode off somewhither. The old doctor and I kept watch. All night poor Bruce raved in the wildest delirium, singing, now psalms, now songs, swearing at the cattle or his poker partners, and now and then, in quieter moments, he was back in his old home, a boy, with a boy's friends and sports. Nothing could check the fever. It baffled the doctor, who often, during the night, declared that there was “no sense in a wound like that working up such a fever,” adding curses upon the folly of The Duke and his Company.
“You don't think he will not get better, doctor?” I asked, in answer to one of his outbreaks.
“He ought to get over this,” he answered, impatiently, “but I believe,” he added, deliberately, “he'll have to go.”
Everything stood still for a moment. It seemed impossible. Two days ago full of life, now on the way out. There crowded in upon me thoughts of his home; his mother, whose letters he used to show me full of anxious love; his wild life here, with all its generous impulses, its mistakes, its folly.
“How long will he last?” I asked, and my lips were dry and numb.
“Perhaps twenty-four hours, perhaps longer. He can't throw off the poison.”
The old doctor proved a true prophet. After another day of agonized delirium he sank into a stupor which lasted through the night.
Then the change came. As the light began to grow at the eastern rim of the prairie and up the far mountains in the west, Bruce opened his eyes and looked about upon us. The doctor had gone; The Duke had not come back; Moore and I were alone. He gazed at us steadily for some moments; read our faces; a look of wonder came into his eyes.
“Is it coming?” he asked in a faint, awed voice. “Do you really think I must go?”