n't try to
stand. Bear on me. I say, bear on me."

"Oh, put me down and let me walk. I'm not hurt. Just a cut. How long
have you been here?"

"Walk! I say! Yes, walk! Put your arm here, across my shoulder, so.
You can walk as well as a week-old baby. You've lost blood enough to
kill a man." So Larry carried him in spite of himself, and laid him in
his bunk. There he stood, panting, and looking down on him. "You're
heavier by a few pounds than when I toted you down that trail last
fall."

"This is all foolishness. I could have made it myself--on foot," said
Harry, ungratefully, but he smiled up in the older man's face a
compensating smile.

"Oh, yes. You can lie there and grin now. And you'll continue to lie
there until I let you up. It's no more lessons with Amalia and no more
violin and poetry for you, for one while, young man."

"Thank God. It will help me over the time until the trail is open."
Larry stood staring foolishly on the drawn face and quivering,
sensitive lips.

"You're hungry, that's what you are," he said conclusively.

"Guess I am. I'm wretchedly sorry to make you all this trouble,
but--she mustn't come in here--you'll bring me a bite to eat--yes, I'm
hungry. That's what ails me." He drew a grimy hand across his eyes and
felt the bandage. "Why--you've done me up! I must have had quite a
cut."

"I'll wash your face and get your coat off, and your boots, and make
you fit to look at, and then--"

"I don't want to see her--or her mother--either. I'm just--I'm a bit
faint--I'll eat if--you'll fetch me a bite."

Quickly Larry removed his outer clothing and mended the fire and then
left him carefully wrapped in blankets and settled in his bunk. When
he returned, he found him light-headed and moaning and talking
incoherently. Only a few words could he understand, and these remained
in his memory.

"When I'm dead--when I'm dead, I say." And then, "Not yet. I can't
tell him yet.--I can't tell him the truth. It's too cruel." And again
the refrain: "When I'm dead--when I'm dead." But when Larry bent over
him and spoke, Harry looked sanely in his eyes and smiled again.

"Ah, that's good," he said, sipping the soup. "I'll be myself again
to-morrow, and save you all this trouble. You know I must have
accomplished a good deal, to break off that ledge, and the gold fairly
leaped out on me as I worked."

"Did you see it?"

"No, but I knew it--I felt it. Shake my clothes and see if they aren't
full of