"I wish him joy of his charge," snorted the doctor, turning again to the
bed, where Bruce had already passed into delirium.

The memory of that vigil was like a horrible nightmare for months.
Moore lay on the floor and slept. The Duke rode off somewhither. The
old doctor and I kept watch. All night poor Bruce raved in the wildest
delirium, singing, now psalms, now songs, swearing at the cattle or his
poker partners, and now and then, in quieter moments, he was back in his
old home, a boy, with a boy's friends and sports. Nothing could check
the fever. It baffled the doctor, who often, during the night, declared
that there was "no sense in a wound like that working up such a fever,"
adding curses upon the folly of The Duke and his Company.

"You don't think he will not get better, doctor?" I asked, in answer to
one of his outbreaks.

"He ought to get over this," he answered, impatiently, "but I believe,"
he added, deliberately, "he'll have to go."

Everything stood still for a moment. It seemed impossible. Two days ago
full of life, now on the way out. There crowded in upon me thoughts of
his home; his mother, whose letters he used to show me full of anxious
love; his wild life here, with all its generous impulses, its mistakes,
its folly.

"How long will he last?" I asked, and my lips were dry and numb.

"Perhaps twenty-four hours, perhaps longer. He can't throw off the
poison."