the wanderer, he was educated, he had
unfamiliar airs and accomplishments, but he was human and natural
withal. He was totally ignorant of much that Mr. Hyde deemed
fundamental, and yet he was mysteriously superior, while his
indifferent good nature, his mild amusement at the antics of the world
about him covered a sincere and earnest nature. He knew his business,
moreover, and he revolutionized Bill's habits of hygiene in spite of
the latter's protests.

But the disease which ravaged Mr. Hyde's constitution had its toes dug
in, and when the steamer touched at St. Michaels he suffered a severe
hemorrhage. For the first time in his life Laughing Bill stood face to
face with darkness. He had fevered memories of going over side on a
stretcher; he was dimly aware of an appalling weakness, which grew
hourly, then an agreeable indifference enveloped him, and for a long
time he lived in a land of unrealities, of dreams. The day came when
he began to wonder dully how and why he found himself in a freezing
cabin with Doctor Thomas, in fur cap and arctic overshoes, tending
him. Bill pondered the phenomenon for a week before he put his query
into words.

"I've had a hard fight for you, old man," the doctor explained. "I
couldn't leave you here to die."

"I guess I must 'a' been pretty sick."

"Right! There's no hospital here, so I took this cabin--borrowed it
from the Company. We don't burn much fuel, and expenses aren't high."

"You been standin' off the landlord?"

"Yes."

There was a considerable silence, then Bill said, fervently: "You're a
regular guy, like I told you! But you got your pill business to attend
to. I'm all right now, so you better blow."

Thomas smiled dubiously. "You're a long way from all right, and
there's no place to 'blow' to. The last boat sailed two weeks ago."

"Last boat for where?"

"For anywhere. We're here for the winter, unless the mail-carrier will
take us to Nome, or up the Yukon, after the trails open."

"I bet you'll do a good business right here, when folks see what you
done for me," Bill ventured.

"Just wait till you look at the town--deserted warehouses, some young
and healthy watchmen, and a Siwash village. You're the only possible
patient in all of St. Michaels."

Bill lay silent for an hour, staring through the open cabin window
at a gray curtain of falling snowflakes; then he shook his head and
muttered:

"Well, I be danged!"

"Anything you want?" Thomas inquired, q