“Thank Heaven, you’re safe!” he mumbled. “Say, Clem. I——”
“Thanks, old man,” broke in Clem, putting out a hand. “Ed told me how you held me up—it was fine work——”
“Oh, shut your blamed mouth!” growled Tom, sitting up. “I got somethin’ to say—you shut up till I get through!”
Clem watched him, waiting in puzzled silence.
“You know what you said when—when you was goin’ down?” blurted out Tom. “About ma and dad—and what you——”
“I know,” said Clem. “Well?”
Tom’s white face flushed slightly.
“Clem, it’s darned hard to explain—but just then, when you went down, an’ I seen how you was givin’ up so’s I could go back—it kind o’ made me realize that you’d meant every darned word o’ what you said. I hadn’t thought of it that way before—but it came to me all of a heap—well, I can’t say any more, Clem—only I want to tell you that I’ve been a darned fool, and——”
“Say, you two guys better drink this coffee in a hurry,” broke in the voice of Ed Davis, who had paused for a moment behind Tom, listening.
He came forward with two steaming cups of coffee, handed one to Tom, and helped Clem to put down the hot fluid in the other. With a sigh of increasing comfort, Clem fell back in the bunk and smiled faintly, his hand touching that of Tom.