“Humph! that’s all cant. You’ll watch me as a cat does a mouse, and just as soon as I begin to spruce up a little, you’ll hand me over to her majesty’s minions, and I shall have a nice little ornament attached to my leg, eh?” He tried to put a bold front on, but it was evident that he experienced considerable anxiety regarding his future. “There will be time enough to talk of that matter by and by,” Earle answered; indeed, he had not given a thought to the subject, and had no idea what course he should pursue. “Now I have to give you this quieting powder,” he added, taking up one from the table, “and the doctor wishes you to get all the rest and sleep you can before the inflammation increases.” He mixed the powder in some kind of tempting jelly, the man watching him curiously all the time. “Who is going to take care of me?” he asked, after he had swallowed it and taken a cooling draught. “I shall take care of you for the present.” “You!” with another curious look. “I suppose you’ve plenty of servants?” “Yes.” “They would do to look after a chap like me; and”—speaking more humbly than he had yet done—“this is too fine a room to upset on my account.” This was encouraging; it showed that the wretch had a little feeling and regret for the trouble he was giving. Earle bent nearer and said, in a friendly tone: “I shall not trust you to the care of servants until the doctor pronounces your wound to be mending. If you should be neglected ever so little, there is no telling what the result might be. As for the room, you need give yourself no uneasiness about it; you are to have just as much attention as if you were my friend or my brother. Now try to forget that you have been my enemy, as I shall; for as you are situated now, I feel only sympathy for you. You must not talk any more, but try to get some rest.” Earle smoothed the tumbled bed-clothes, changed the wet cloth upon the sufferer’s burning head, drew down the curtains to shade the light from his eyes, and was about to seat himself at a distance and leave him to sleep, when his voice again arrested him. “Say!” “Well?” he asked, again coming to his side to see if he wished anything. The man hesitated a minute while he searched his face keenly, and then burst forth: “I am _cussed_ if I can make out what kind of a chap you are, anyhow!” Earle smiled slightly at his evident perplexity, and the invalid continued: “First, you hit a fellow a swinger on the back of the head that knocks the life out of him, and makes one think that the fury of seven Jupiters is concentrated in you; next, you shoot him with a revolver, and then turn around and nurse him as tender as a woman—I can’t make it out.”