rifle was good, and his aim was true, so that, but
for the sickness of his friend, he would have considered the life he led
a remarkably pleasant one.

As day after day passed by, however, and Tom Collins grew no better, but
rather worse, he began to be seriously alarmed about him. Tom himself
took the gloomiest view of his case, and at last said plainly he
believed he was dying. At first Ned sought to effect a cure by the
simple force of kind treatment and care; but finding that this would not
do, he bethought him of trying some experiments in the medicinal way.
He chanced to have a box of pills with him, and tried one, although with
much hesitation and fear, for he had got them from a miner who could not
tell what they were composed of, but who assured him they were a
sovereign remedy for the blues! Ned, it must be confessed, was rather a
reckless doctor. He was anxious, at the time he procured the pills, to
relieve a poor miner who seemed to be knocked up with hard work, but who
insisted that he had a complication of ailments; so Ned bought the pills
for twenty times their value, and gave a few to the man, advising him,
at the same time, to rest and feed well, which he did, and the result
was a complete cure.

Our hero did not feel so certain, however, that they would succeed as
well in the present case; but he resolved to try their virtues, for Tom
was so prostrate that he could scarcely be induced to whisper a word.
When the cold fit seized him he trembled so violently that his teeth
rattled in his head; and when that passed off it was followed by a
burning fever, which was even worse to bear.

At first he was restive, and inclined to be peevish under his illness,
the result, no doubt, of a naturally-robust constitution struggling
unsuccessfully against the attacks of disease, but when he was
completely overcome, his irascibility passed away, and he became
patient, sweet-tempered, and gentle as a child.

"Come, Tom, my boy," said Ned, one evening, advancing to the side of his
companion's couch and sitting down beside him, while he held up the
pill--"Open your mouth, and shut your eyes, as we used to say at
school."

"What is it?" asked the sick man, faintly.

"Never you mind; patients have no business to know what their doctors
prescribe. It's intended to cure ague, and that's enough for you to
know. If it doesn't cure you it's not my fault, anyhow--open your
mouth, sir!"

Tom smiled sadly and obeyed