t, were he able to see
at all, must surely have disclosed them.

"Is he drunk?" Dale whispered, but Jess solemnly shook his head.

"Nope, he ain't drunk--leastways, that ain't the main trouble! He's
plumb crazy with a fever, an' damn nigh starved to death! Look at his
face an' cracked lips! I don't know as we'd orter take 'im down to
town, Dale;--maybe it's ketchin'!"

"Not take him! Not take him!" Dale cried in an angry voice. "Well, _I_
ain't afraid of nothin' ketchin'! He won't get away from me again, I
tell you!"

"Who said I was afeerd of ketchin' somethin'?" the sheriff answered,
with a black frown. "I was thinkin' of other folks! Didn't you never try
thinkin' a leetle bit of other folks, jest to see how it 'ud feel,
Dale?"

A deep growl from Tusk made them turn again. He was quite still now, and
listening; while his eyes, seeing but not seeing, stared at them, and
his brows puckered as though trying to call back some hazy memory.

"Good Lawd," Jess whispered, "look at his foot an' leg! It must be
blood-pisen, or gang-green, or somethin' like that, Dale!--that, an' a
burnin' fever, an' not any too much sense at best, poh devil! Why, he
don't know whar he's at! Tusk," the tender-hearted officer stepped out
and called to him, "we've come up to help you some!"

A spasm of terror crossed the unfortunate man's face; but then he gave a
curious sort of laugh and began to crawl awkwardly toward the point of
the spur.

"Set down thar, Tusk," the sheriff called again, this time making ready
to follow. "Set down, now, till I git out to you!"

Tusk laughed. A child crawling over a nursery floor might so have
laughed if playfully chased by its nurse. But this misshapen hulk of
humanity did not possess even the wisdom of a child. He only laughed and
crawled faster, looking back with an expression of mischievous cunning
and extreme delight.

Jess saw the imminent danger of Tusk's direction. With one movement he
uncocked his rifle and laid it on the ground, then sprang out upon the
spur. He did not ask Dale to follow, for somehow it was borne in on him
that the mountaineer, having come expressly to wreak vengeance, was
making a concession now in remaining neutral.

"Wait thar!" he yelled. "Wait, you fool, afore you pitch over the side!"

The sheriff was running, as well as one could run on such an uncertain,
dizzy place, for Tusk had given another cry of hysterical delight and
was crawling with all his speed, looki