AN FROM THE WILDERNESS.

"Howdy, all on you? Two boys included. D'yer hear, nippers? I was a
bit scared about ketching you, doctor. You're wanted yonder."

"An accident?" cried the doctor quickly.

"Accident?" said the newcomer. "Wal, yes, that'll do. You might call
him an accident, poor beggar, for he's about played down to the lowest
level. Some'd call him a loafer, but we'll say accident--fatal
accident, for I'm thinking he's too far gone for you, friend Lee, clever
doctor as you are."

"Where is he? At your place?"

"Nay-y-y! He's trudging along after me. I said I'd fetch the doctor to
him, poor fellow, but he just found words enough to say he'd come after
me, and he crept along. Yes," continued the American, turning to the
door. "Here he comes. Do what you can for him, and send him back to
me; he can have one of the sheds and as much husk as he likes to lie on
for the time he wants it, and I don't think that'll be long."

"I dare say we can do that for him, poor fellow," said the doctor
coldly, as he stepped towards the door, and then uttered an exclamation.
"For goodness' sake, Bourne, look here!"

Both his companions and the boys hurried to the door to look out where a
strange, gaunt-looking, grey-haired figure came creeping along in the
hot sunshine, walking painfully by the help of a stout six-foot stick.

At the first glance the red-brown skin drawn so tightly over his face
made him resemble a mummy more than a living being, while his worn
canvas and skin garments clung so tightly to him that his bodily aspect
was horribly suggestive of a clothed skeleton.

Upon seeing that he was observed he stopped short, leaning forward
resting heavily upon the stick, to which he clung, peering from beneath
the shadow cast by his bony brows, while his eyes, deeply sunken in
their orbits, seemed to literally glow.

The next moment he turned slowly towards a rough bench fixed beneath a
shade-giving tree and sank slowly down with his back to the trunk,
stretching out a long thin hand towards the doctor, while his dry
greyish lips moved as if appealing naturally to him, the man he believed
able to give that which he sought--help.

"Ugh! How horrible!" whispered Chris to his companion. "If I had seen
him lying down I should have thought that he was dead."

The boy's idea was shared by all present, as the doctor stepped forward
to their visitor.

"That's how he looked at me when he came up," said the