The winter had been too long and cold, or the child, however tender Seth's care of him, had been insufficiently clothed and fed.
He lay ill, alternately shaking with chills and burning with fever.
It was March now and the winds blew with the fierceness of tornadoes.
But the laughter of Charlie's delirium outvoiced the winds.
Now he moaned with them and sighed.
Cyclona took up her abode at the dugout now, nursing him tirelessly, while Seth walked the floor, back and forth, back and forth like some caged and helpless animal writhing in pain; for from the first he had read death in the face of the child.
The wind lulled and Seth knelt by his bedside, his ear against Charlie's heart, listening for his breathing, Cyclona standing fearfully by, her face white as the coverings.
After a long time Seth raised beseeching eyes to her in an unspoken question:
"Does he breathe?"