Five days had passed, days of raging fever and delirium so violent that already the powerful frame seemed nearly exhausted; the sufferer calling almost incessantly for the loved ones of his old home, but oftenest for his mother. Some faint glimmer of recognition must occasionally have reached those darkened chambers of the brain, since when attended by Mr. Cameron, Houston or Lyle, he rested more quietly, though never calling Lyle by her own name, but always by that of his sister, Edna. The fever had subsided, and he was now rapidly passing into a death-like stupor, hovering between life and death, unconscious of skilled physicians and trained nurses that came and went, unconscious of loving friends bending above him, their prayers and efforts combined with the skill of the former, in the terrible combat against the mighty foe. The physicians watching by the bedside, shook their heads, as they felt the pulse, fluttering more and more faintly. "He is sinking, failing rapidly," they said, "to-night will be the crisis, the turning point; unless there is a change then for the better, he will never see the dawning of another day." To Mrs. Cameron, journeying westward with Morton Rutherford, the moments had seemed like hours, the hours like days, since learning for whose sake had come the summons to that distant country. Only the speed of the lightning could have satisfied the heart of the mother hastening to her long-lost son. They had been kept informed along the route of Guy's condition, and now, upon their arrival at Silver City, on the noon train, they found a special car awaiting them, to convey them at once to the Y, which had been ordered by telegraphic dispatch from Mr. Cameron. The watchers by the bedside heard the sound of swiftly approaching wheels; Mr. Cameron and Houston stepped quickly out to greet the sweet-faced woman hastening toward the house on the arm of Morton Rutherford. "Am I in time? Is our boy still living?" were her first words, as her husband met her with outstretched arms, his face working with deep emotion. "Just in time, thank God!" was the broken reply. "Oh, Walter, is there no hope?" she queried, understanding his words only too well. "I must not deceive you, Marjorie, there is the barest possibility that he may live, no more." "He must live, and he will," replied the mother, in tones that reminded both Houston and Morton Rutherford wonderfully of Lyle. Turning toward Houston, Mrs. Cameron greeted him affectionately, and gently touching the wounded arm, exclaimed: "My poor, dear boy, what a terrible risk you have run!" To which he replied, "I would go through it all again, Aunt Marjorie, for the joy I believe it will bring you and yours."