The word of old Holt alone might
be negligible, but supported by that of a disinterested party it would
be a very different matter. Still, there was no help for it. They would
have to take care of the man until he was able to travel. Perhaps he
would go in with them as an additional guard. At the worst Big Bill
could give him a letter to Selfridge explaining things and so pass the
buck to that gentleman.
Gid Holt had, with the tacit consent of his guards, appointed himself as
a sort of nurse to the stranger. He lit a smudge fire to the windward
side of him, fed him small quantities of food at intervals, and arranged
a sleeping-place for him with mosquito netting for protection.
Early in the evening the sick man fell into a sound sleep from
which he did not awake until morning. George was away looking after the
pack-horses, Dud was cooking breakfast, and Big Bill, his rifle close at
hand, was chopping young firs fifty feet back of the camp. The cook also
had a gun, loaded with buckshot, lying on a box beside him, so that they
were taking no chances with their prisoner. He could not have covered
twenty yards without being raked by a cross-fire.
The old miner turned from rearranging the boughs of green fir on the
smudge to see that his patient was awake and his mind normal.
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