ed forehead. He
failed to catch the look of pain his words brought into her eyes, or he
must have cringed with shame. "This is not like you, Captain Barry, to
say such things behind one's back."

"I beg your pardon," mumbled the skipper humbly. And he relapsed into
sullen silence, feigning sleep again simply to escape her steady gaze.
She watched him awhile, then giving an inquiring glance at Little,
adjusting his curtains and pillow, she left the room, and silence once
more settled down that lasted until Little emerged from his drugged
sleep and sat up with a noisy yawn.

"Say, Barry; what did you dream about?" he cried, rubbing his eyes
furiously as if to clear cobwebs from his brain. "Did you have any dope
in your physic?"

"I don't know," growled the skipper. "I know I saw Vandersee here, the
moment I woke up, with some sailors, and they tell me I dreamed it!"

"Oh, then, it's all right," replied Little carelessly. "You must have
had the same dope. I dreamed they were here just as I dropped off to
sleep. Was Gordon with you, too?"

"He was, and he was no dream!"

"That's right, too. He gave me some dope that made me sleep like an
infant. I suppose it's the poison of those ants that makes us imagine
creepy things."

"By Godfrey, I don't imagine anything!" cried Barry, and he tore down
his curtains and leaped to the floor. "I'm going to dress and put an end
to this Hobson-Jobson flummery!" He tottered, clawed wildly at the air,
and pitched headlong beside Little's cot.

"There! It's the poison," moaned Little, squirming out of his bed and
trying to lift his friend up. Then his own world spun around him, and he
fell beside Barry, every inch of ant-bitten skin a blazing patch of
torture.

Mrs. Goring and Natalie, entering together five minutes later, found
them there; and all the good already accomplished had to be done over.
It was two days now before the patients were able to recognize their
nurses; but when recognition came, at least one of the women sighed
thankfully to notice that Barry no longer harped upon naval officers and
Vandersee. His relapse seemed to have driven all earlier ideas from his
head; his bodily weakness was so intense that Mrs. Goring found him a
babe in her hands, and Natalie could scarcely tend him for the weakness
that attacked her at sight of him.

But the day came when he and Little were permitted to walk, and then the
stockade formed their promenade ground. With a nurse for ea