For two long hours the horse plodded along the stony and uneven road, and then the light began to redden in the east, and Jim could see the road sufficiently to increase his speed with safety. It was not until long after the sun had risen that Benedict awoke, and found himself too weak to rise. Jim gave him more food, answered his anxious inquiries in his own way, and managed to keep him upon his bed, from which he constantly tried to rise in response to his wandering impulses. It was nearly noon when they found themselves at the river; and the preparations for embarkation were quickly made. The horse was tied and fed, the wagon unfastened, and the whole establishment was left for Mike to reclaim, according to the arrangement that Jim had made with him. The woodsman saw that his patient would not be able to sit, and so felt himself compelled to take along the bed. Arranging this with the pillows in the bow of his boat, and placing Benedict upon it, with his boy at his feet, he shoved off, and started up the stream. After running along against the current for a mile, Benedict having quietly rested meantime, looked up and said weakly: "Jim, is this the gulf?" "Yes," responded Jim, cheerfully. "This is the gulf, and a purty place 'tis too. I've seed a sight o' worser places nor this." "It's very beautiful," responded Benedict. "We must be getting pretty near." "It's not very fur now," said Jim. The poor, wandering mind was trying to realize the heavenly scenes that it believed were about to burst upon its vision. The quiet, sunlit water, the trees still bare but bourgeoning, the songs of birds, the blue sky across which fleecy clouds were peacefully floating, the breezes that kissed his fevered cheek, the fragrance of the bordering evergreens, and the electric air that entered his lungs so long accustomed to the poisonous fetor of his cell, were well calculated to foster his delusion, and to fill his soul with a peace to which it had long been a stranger. An exquisite languor stole upon him, and under the pressure of his long fatigue, his eyelids fell, and he dropped into a quiet slumber. When the boy saw that his father was asleep, he crept back to Jim and said: "Mr. Fenton, I don't think it's right for you to tell papa such lies." "Call me Jim. The Doctor called me 'Mr. Fenton,' and it 'most killed me." "Well, Jim." "Now, that sounds like it. You jest look a here, my boy. Your pa ain't livin' in this world now, an' what's true to him is a lie to us, an' what's true to us is a lie to him. I jest go into his world and say what's true whar he lives. Isn't that right?" This vein of casuistry was new to the boy, and he was staggered. "When your pa gits well agin, an' here's hopin,' Jim Fenton an' he will be together in their brains, ye know, and then they won't be talkin' like a couple of jay-birds, and I won't lie to him no more nor I would to you."