ll get your turn some day. I've
warned you before."

The Duke was standing up before the doctor during this storm, smiling
slightly. All at once the smile faded out and he pointed to the bed.
Bruce was sitting up quiet and steady. He stretched out his hand to The
Duke.

"Don't mind the old fool," he said, holding The Duke's hand and
looking up at him as fondly as if he were a girl. "It's my own
funeral--funeral?" he paused--"Perhaps it may be--who knows?--feel queer
enough--but remember, Duke--it's my own fault--don't listen to those
bally fools," looking towards Moore and the doctor. "My own fault"--his
voice died down--"my own fault."

The Duke bent over him and laid him back on the pillow, saying, "Thanks,
old chap, you're good stuff. I'll not forget. Just keep quiet and you'll
be all right." He passed his cool, firm hand over the hot brow of the
man looking up at him with love in his eyes, and in a few moments Bruce
fell asleep. Then The Duke lifted himself up, and facing the doctor,
said in his coolest tone:

"Your words are more true than opportune, doctor. Your patient will need
all your attention. As for my morals, Mr. Moore kindly entrusts himself
with the care of them." This with a bow toward The Pilot.

"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 gen