f you can, and pour water over
his face and head and put a little in his mouth sometimes."

Tuttle carried the water for their use, two pailsful at a time, and
Mead kept his body well drenched. Ellhorn stooped over the hammock and
continued his coaxing talk, drawling one sentence after another with
slurred r's and soft southern accents. With one hand he patted the
patient's head and shoulders and with the other he dashed water over
his face or trickled it, drop by drop, into his mouth. After a while
they gave the half-conscious man some weak tea, took off his wet
clothes and put him to bed. There they looked after him carefully,
giving him frequent but small instalments of food in liquid form and
an occasional swallow of water. After some hours they decided he was
out of danger and would recover without an illness. Then Nick Ellhorn
mounted a horse and rode away. When he returned he carried a burden
tied in a gunny sack, which he suspended from the limb of a tree and
carefully drenched with water many times before he retired. The next
day he anxiously watched the bag, keeping it constantly wet and shaded
and free to the breezes. And in the afternoon, with a smile curling
his mustache almost up to his eyes, he spread before Wellesly a big,
red watermelon, cold and luscious. With delight in his face and
chuckling in his voice he watched the sick man eat as much as Emerson
would allow him to have, and then begged that he be given more. To get
the melon Ellhorn had ridden fifteen miles and back, to the nearest
ranch beyond Mead's.

"I never saw a man look happier that you-all do right now," he said as
he watched Wellesly.

"And you never saw anybody who felt happier than I do with this melon
slipping down my throat," Wellesly responded. "I feel now as if I
should never want to do anything but swallow wet things all the rest
of my life. By the way, did one of you fellows stand beside me a long
time yesterday, coaxing me to lie still?"

"Yes," said Nick, "it was me. We had to make you keep quiet, or you'd
have gone luny because we wouldn't give you all the water you wanted
to drink. It would have killed you to drink the water, and if you had
yelled and fought yourself crazy for it I reckon you'd have died
anyway."

[Illustration: "ONCE HE CAME UPON HUMAN BONES, WITH SHREDS OF
CLOTHING."--_p. 179_]

"Well, I guess you saved my life, then. For if you hadn't kept me
quiet I'd have fought all creation for water. The notio