id kindly, "not so bad as that."

"Jimmy bad as that--Jimmy bad as that," moaned the poor fellow; and as
just then Jack Penny threw some light twigs upon the fire, the blaze
showed me the swollen and distorted countenance of my poor companion,
and a strange chill of apprehension came over me.

We watched by him all night, but he grew worse towards morning, and at
last he lay apparently stupefied, free from pain, but as if the berry,
or whatever it was that he had swallowed, had rendered him insensible.

Of course, continuing our journey was out of the question, so all we
could do was to make the rough brushwood pallet of the sufferer more
comfortable by spreading over it a blanket, and I did little else but
watch by it all the day.

I felt hurt two or three times by the rough, unfeeling manner in which
the doctor behaved towards the black, and I could not help thinking that
if Jimmy had been a white man the treatment would have been different.

This worried me a good deal, for it seemed so different to the doctor's
customary way; but I took comfort from the fact that poor Jimmy was as
insensible to pain as he was to kindness, and in this state of misery I
hardly left him all day.

Towards evening the doctor, who had spent the time overhauling and
cleaning our guns and pistols, came to me and insisted upon my going to
Jack Penny, who had just got a good meal ready.

"But I am not a bit hungry, doctor," I cried.

"Then go and eat against you are," he said. "Lay in a moderate store,
and don't," he added meaningly, "don't eat more than is good for you."

I looked at him wonderingly, and got up without a word, feeling more
hurt and annoyed with him than ever, and the more so as he looked at me
with a peculiar smile as he twisted a stout cane about in his hands.

"How's Jimmy?" said Jack Penny.

"Dying," I said sadly, as I took my seat before him.

"Oh! I say, not so bad as that, Joe Carstairs! It takes a lot to kill
a fellow like Jimmy. He'll come all right again. Here, set to and have
a good feed. You must want it awfully."

"I can't eat," I said bitterly. "I liked poor old Jimmy. A better
fellow never breathed. He saved your life yesterday."

"Ah! that he did," said Jack; "and it's all right. The doctor says--
Hullo! what's that?"

I started to my feet, for a horrible scream rang through the woods from
the direction where poor Jimmy lay; and a pang shot through me as I felt
that it was a new thro