The Young Engineers in Nevada Part 41

"But the fever."

"That has to burn itself out, I reckon," replied the Nevadan.

"Reade, you'll be sick yourself next. Lay out the medicines, and I'll give 'em, to the minute, while you get six hours' sleep."

"No, sir!" was Reade's quick retort.

"Then, before you do cave in, partner, suppose you pick out the medicines that you want me to give you when you can't do anything for yourself any longer."

Tom went back to his chair by the side of Harry's bunk.

Outdoors some of the men were clearing a path to the mine-shaft.

Not that it was worth while to try to do any work underground.

The rock at the tunnel heading was too stubborn to be moved by anything less than dynamite.

"I'd get some lumber together, and make a pair of skis," suggested Jim, the next day, "but what is the use? We'll have to have twenty-four hours of freezing weather before we'll have a crust.

As soon as we can see snow that will bear a human being I'll start for Dugout City."

"But not for dynamite," declared Tom.

"No; for a doctor, I suppose."

"A physician's visit is the only thing I'm interested in now,"

Tom declared, glancing at the bunk. "I'd give up any mine on earth to be able to pull poor old Harry through."

On the fifth day, while the weather still remained too warm for the forming of a snow-crust, Harry began to show signs of improvement.

He was gaunt and thin, but his skin felt less hot to the touch.

His eyes had lost some of the fever brightness, and he spoke of the pain in his chest as being less severe than it had been.

"I've been an awful nuisance here," he whispered, weakly, as his chum bent over him.

"Stow all that kind of talk," Reade ordered. "Just get your strength back as fast as you can. Sleep all you can, too. Get a nap, now, and maybe when you wake up you'll be hungry enough to want a little something to eat."

"I don't want anything," Harry replied.

"He's a goner, sure!" gasped Tom Reade, inwardly, feeling a great chill of fear creep up and down his spine. "It's the first time in his life that I ever knew Harry to refuse to eat."

"The weather is coming on cold," Jim Ferrers reported that evening, when he came back from the c.o.o.n shack with Tom's supper.

"Is it going to be cold enough to put a crust on the snow?" Reade eagerly demanded.

"If it keeps on growing cold we ought to have a good crust by the day after tomorrow."

"I'll pray for it," said Tom fervently.

Next day the weather continued intensely cold. Jim Ferrers went to another shack to construct a pair of skis. These are long, wooden runners on which Norwegians travel with great speed over hard snow. Jim was positive that he could make the skis and that he could use them successfully.

Harry still remained weak and ill, caring nothing for food, though his refusals to eat drove Reads well-nigh frantic.

The morning after the skis were made, Jim Ferrers, who had relieved worn-out Tom at three in the morning, stepped to the young engineer's bunk and shook him lightly.

"All right," said Reade, sitting up in bed. "I'll get up."

He was out of the bunk almost instantly.

"I'm going to send Tim Walsh in to help you a bit," Jim whispered.

"The crust is right this morning, and I'm off for Dugout. Before we forget it give me that nugget."

Tom pa.s.sed it over, saying solemnly:

"Remember, Jim, you've got to bring a doctor back with you---if you have to do it at the point of a gun!"

"I'll bring one back with me, if there's one left in Dugout,"

Ferrers promised, fervently.

Fifteen minutes later Jim was on his way. Tim Walsh came in on tip-toe, and seemed afraid to stir lest he make some slight sound to disturb the sleeping sick lad.

"A day or two more will tell the tale, Tim," Tom whispered in the big miner's ear.

"Oh, it isn't as bad as that, sir; it can't be," protested the big fellow in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "I reckon Mr. Hazelton is going to get well all right."

"He won't eat anything," said Tom.

"He will when he's hungry, sir."

"Tim, have you ever had any practice in looking after sick people?"

"Quite a bit, sir. When I was a younker I was private in the hospital corps in the Army."

"Why on earth didn't you tell me that before?" Tom gasped.

"Why, because, sir, I allowed that a brainy young man like you would know just what to do a heap better than I would."

"Tim, do you know anything about temperatures and drugs?"

"Maybe I'd remember a little bit," Walsh answered modestly. "It's twelve years since I was in the Army."

Tom brought the medicine case with trembling hands.

"To think that, all the time," he muttered, "I've been longing for a doctor's visit, and yet I've had a man in camp who's almost a doctor."

"No, sir; a long way from that," protested Tim Walsh. "And, besides, I've forgotten a whole lot that I used to know."

Tom rapidly explained how he had been treating Hazelton, according to the directions in the little medicine book. Tim listened gravely.

"Was that all right, Tim?" Tom asked, breathlessly, when he had finished.

"I should say about all right, sir."

"Tim, what shall I do next?"