od been presented to him he could not have eaten it.
He had an extraordinary feeling of depression and despair.

Ned knew what was the matter with him. He was suffering either from
overwhelming nervous and physical exhaustion, or he had contracted
malaria in the swamps of the Guadalupe. Despite every effort of the
will, he began to shake with cold, and he knew that a chill was coming.
He had retained his blankets, his frontiersman's foresight not deserting
him, and now, knowing that he could not continue his flight for the
present, he sought the deepest part of the thicket. He crept into a
place so dense that it would have been suited for an animal's den, and
lying down there he wrapped the blankets tightly about himself, his
rifle and his ammunition.

In spite of his clothing and the warm blankets he grew colder and
colder. His teeth chattered and he shivered all over. He would not have
minded that so much, but his head ached with great violence, and the
least light hurt his eyes. It seemed to him the culmination. Never had
he been more miserable, more lost of both body and soul. The pain in his
head was so violent that life was scarcely worth the price.

He sank by and by into a stupor. He was remotely conscious that he was
lying in a thicket, somewhere in boundless Texas, but it did not really
matter. Cougars or bears might come there to find him, but he was too
sick to raise a hand against them. Besides, he did not care. A million
Mexicans might be beating up those thickets for him, and they would be
sure to find him. Well, what of it? They would shoot him, and he would
merely go at once to some other planet, where he would be better off
than he was now.

It seems that fate reserves her severest ordeals for the strong and the
daring, as if she would respond to the challenges they give. It seems
also that often she brings them through the test, as if she likes the
courage and enterprise that dare her, the all-powerful, to combat. Ned's
intense chill abated. He ceased to shake so violently, and after a while
he did not shake at all. Then fever came. Intolerable heat flowed
through every vein, and his head was ready to burst. After a while
violent perspiration broke out all over him, and then he became
unconscious.

Ned lay all night in the thicket, wrapped in the blankets, and breathing
heavily. Once or twice he half awoke, and remembered things dimly, but
these periods were very brief and he sank back into stupo