me pretty toler'ble bad, ain't ye, little
gal?" this last to Margery.

Weary as she was she smiled upon him brightly, as though he had been her
grandsire and so free to name her how he pleased.

"I shall sleep well when we are out of danger. But you must not stop for
me, or for Jeanne, till 'tis safe to do so."

"Safe? Lord love ye, child! 'safe' is a word beyond us yit, and will be
till we sot ye down on your daddy's door-stone. But we'll make out to
give ye a bite and sup and forty winks o' sleep immejitly, _if_ not
sooner, now."

So, on the farther side of the stream the hunter led the way aside, and
when we were come to a small meadow glade with good grazing for the
horses, he called a halt, lifted the women from their saddles and came
to help me ease Dick down. The poor lad was stiff and sore, having no
more use of his joints than if he were a bandaged mummy; but the fever
delirium had passed and he was able to laugh feebly at the tree-limb
contrivance rigged to hold him in the saddle.

"How did we come out of it, Jack?" he asked, when we had let him feel
the comfort of lying flat upon his back on the soft sward.

"As you see. We are all here, and all in fair fettle, saving yourself.
You're the heaviest loser."

He smiled, and his eyes languid with the fever sought out Margery, who
would not come anigh whilst I was with him.

"That remains to be seen, Jack. If my dream comes true, I shall be the
richest gainer."

"What did you dream?"

He beckoned me to bend lower over him. "I dreamed I was sore hurt, and
that she was binding up my bruises and crying over me."

"'Twas no dream," I said; and with that I went to help Yeates make a
bough shelter for the women while Uncanoola was grinding the maize for
the breakfast cakes.

'Tis not my purpose to weary you with a day-by-day accounting for all
that befell us on the way back to Mecklenburg. Suffice it to say that we
ate and slept and rose to mount and ride again; this for five days and
nights, during which Jennifer's fever grew upon him steadily.

At the close of the fifth day our night halt was in a deserted log
cabin at the edge of an unfinished clearing in the heart of the forest.
Here Richard's sickness anchored us, and for three full weeks the
journey paused.

We nursed the lad as best we could for a fortnight, dosing him with
stewings of such roots and herbs as the Catawba could find in the wood.
Then, when we were at our wits' ends, and Yeates an