His eyes lifted from the dying man, and he stared about him vaguely. They took in the squatting dogs, reveling in the comfort of the flickering firelight, well sheltered from the breath of winter by the canvas screen he had erected to shelter his sick companion. The sight of these luxuriating beasts annoyed him; and, with a vicious kick at the nearest, he sent them scuttling into the background.
Then he glanced at his diminished store of wood. Here lay the only service his helplessness permitted his thought to rise to. Yes, he could still strive to keep the cold, that stealing cold which Charlie had cried out against so bitterly, that cold which he had declared had eaten into his very bones, from his dying friend. So he moved over to the pile and replenished the fire with liberal hand, till the last stick in his store had found its way to the hungry flames. Then, with a curious patience, almost gentleness, he once more tried to administer the fragrant, but less savory soup, which was always kept simmering in the boiler on the fire.
It was curious to watch this powerful specimen of virile, unsympathetic manhood endeavoring to assume the indescribable gentleness of the nurse. It fitted him as ill as anything well could, yet he did his best. And no one knew better than he that his patient was beyond such clumsy, well-meaning efforts. The lips remained closed, as did the sunken eyes, and no words of rough encouragement seemed to penetrate to the dull brain behind them.
At last Tug put the pannikin aside, and dropped the tin spoon with a clatter. He could do no more. Again he rose to his feet and stood helplessly by.
"Poor devil," he muttered. "His number's plumb up."
At the sound of his voice there came a slight movement of the lolling head. Then the great eyes opened slowly, and stared up at the muttering man in an uncanny, unseeing fashion.
"Sure."
The one word, spoken in the faintest of whispers, told Tug that the dying man's intellect remained unimpaired, and the knowledge left him annoyed with himself that he had spoken aloud.
"I'm kind of sorry, Charlie," he blundered. "I didn't just guess you could hear."
"I've—known it—days." The other struggled painfully with his words.