; the pill was dropt in, a spoonful of water
added to float it down, and it disappeared.

But the pill had no effect whatever. Another was tried with like
result--or rather with like absence of all result, and at last the box
was finished without the sick man being a whit the better or the worse
for them. This was disheartening; but Ned, having begun to dabble in
medicines, felt an irresistible tendency to go on. Like the tiger who
has once tasted blood, he could not now restrain himself.

"I think you're a little better to-night, Tom," he said on the third
evening after the administration of the first pill; "I'm making you a
decoction of bark here that will certainly do you good."

Tom shook his head, but said nothing. He evidently felt that a negative
sign was an appropriate reply to the notion of his being better, or of
any decoction whatever doing him good. However, Ned stirred the panful
of bark and water vigorously, chatting all the while in a cheering tone,
in order to keep up his friend's spirits, while the blaze of the
camp-fire lit up his handsome face and bathed his broad chest and
shoulders with a ruddy glow that rendered still more pallid the lustre
of the pale stars overhead.

"It's lucky the rain has kept off so long," he said, without looking up
from the mysterious decoction over which he bent with the earnest gaze
of an alchymist. "I do believe that has something to do with your being
better, my boy--either that or the pills, or both."

Ned totally ignored the fact that his friend did not admit that he was
better.

"And this stuff," he continued, "will set you up in a day or two. It's
as good as quinine, any day; and you've no notion what wonderful cures
that medicine effects. It took me a long time, too, to find the right
tree. I wandered over two or three leagues of country before I came
upon one. Luckily it was a fine sunny day, and I enjoyed it much. I
wish you had been with me, Tom; but you'll be all right soon. I lay
down, too, once or twice in the sunshine, and put my head in the long
grass, and tried to fancy myself in a miniature forest. Did you ever
try that, Tom!"

Ned looked round as he spoke, but the sick man gave a languid smile, and
shut his eyes, so he resumed his stirring of the pot and his rambling
talk.

"You've no idea, if you never tried it, how one can deceive one's-self
in that way. I often did it at home, when I was a little boy. I used
to go away with a