Bricks to warm the bed, hot soup of Mam Gusta's expert concocting, a thick onion poultice to ease the pain in throat and chest and draw out inflammation: every one of those were as far beyond reach now as Oak Hill itself! For a moment Drew was gripped with a panic born of utter frustration. "Shelly? You there, Shelly?" Boyd's hoarse voice came from the dark. "I'm sure thirsty, Shelly!" Drew turned his head. Kirby had been behind him, but now the Texan was back to the fire, ladling more hot water out of the pot. When he returned, Weatherby was with him. Drew slipped his arm under that restlessly turning head to support the boy while the Texan held the tin cup to Boyd's lips. They got a few mouthfuls into him before he turned his head away with a ghost of some of his old petulance. "I'm hungry, Shelly. Tell Mam Gusta...." Weatherby squatted down on the other side of Boyd's limp body and put his hand to the boy's forehead. "Fever." "Yes." Drew knew that much. "There's a farmhouse two miles that way." Weatherby nodded to the south. "Maybe nobody there, but it will be cover--" "You can find it?" Drew demanded. The Cherokee scout answered quickly. "Yes. You tell the lieutenant, and we'll go there." Kirby's hand rested on Drew's shoulder for a moment. "I'll track down Traggart. You and Weatherby here get the kid into that cover as quick as you can. This ain't no weather for an hombre with a cough to be out sackin' in the bush." Kirby was back again before they had rigged a blanket stretcher between two horses. "The lieutenant says to stay with th' kid till mornin'. He'll send the doc along as soon as he can find him. Trouble is, we may have to ride on tomorrow...." But Drew put that worry out of his mind. No use thinking about tomorrow; the present moment was the most important. With Weatherby as their guide, they started off at a walk, heading into the night across ice-rimmed fields while the rising wind brought frost to bite in the air they pulled into their lungs. There was no light showing in the black bulk of the house to which Weatherby steered them. It was small, hardly better than a cabin, but the door swung open as Kirby knocked on it; and they could smell the cold, stale odor of a deserted and none-too-clean dwelling. But it was shelter, and exploring in the dark, Kirby announced that there was firewood piled beside the hearth. By the light of the blaze Weatherby brought alive they found an old bedstead backed against the wall, a tangle of filthy quilts cascading from it. One look at them assured Drew that Boyd would be far better left in his blankets on the floor itself. The Cherokee scout prowled the room, looking into the rickety wall cupboards, venturing through another door into a second smaller room, really a lean-to, and then going up the ladder into a loft. "They left in a hurry, whoever lived here," he reported. "They left this--" He held out a dried, shrunken piece of shriveled salt beef.