ust when you were at your
worst I had the best of outside help in pulling you through."

"You mean you got help after you had pulled me out of all danger,"
Hazelton retorted. "And now you've pulled our stranger through.
Or the next thing to it. His fever is gone, and he's mending."

"Nothing much ailed him, I reckon, but intense anxiety and too
little food. Our man is resting, now, and getting strong."

"But he's a mystery to me," Harry continued.

"How so?"

"I can't make anything out of him."

"That's right."

"Do you figure out anything concerning him?" Hazelton inquired.

"I don't want to. It isn't any of my business. Our unknown guest
is very plainly a gentleman, and that's enough to know about him.
If he hasn't told us anything more then it's because he thinks
his affairs are of more importance to himself than to us."

"Oh, of course, I didn't mean that I wanted to pry into his affairs,"
Harry protested.

"No; and we won't do it, either, Harry. If our guest should happen
to be missing some morning, without even a note of thanks left
behind, we'll understand what it cost him to slip away without
saying farewell."

The day before Don Luis had made one of his occasional visits,
but he had not gone into the cook tent. Even had he done so the
mine owner would probably have seen nothing to make him curious.
At the further end of the cook tent lay the stranger, and his
bed had been curtained off by a dark-colored print curtain that
looked as though it might have been placed there to partition
off part of the tent. Don Luis had called merely to chat with
the young engineers, and to use his keen eyes in determining whether
his enforced guests were any nearer to the point of yielding to
his demands upon them.

Concerning the sick man, Nicolas had remained wholly silent.
He did not offer to go near the sick man, but brought whatever
Tom or Harry had called for. To have the sick man on their hands
had been a rather welcome break for the young engineers, since
it had given them something with which to occupy themselves.

Just before dark on the fifth day, Tom strolled into the cook
tent, going to the rear and parting the curtain.

"How do you feel, now?" Reade asked in a whisper.

"Much stronger, senor," came the grateful answer. "Last night,
when your servant slept, I rose and walked about the tent a little
to find the use of my legs again. To-day, when alone, I did the
same thing. By morning