With a sharp word to the leaping, raging hound, he dragged the recumbent body inside, shut the door, and lighted a bundle of pine knots in the fire-place. In the bright yellow light that flooded the cabin he knelt down and examined the man who lay there. He drew off the frosty fur cap from the close-clipped head. The coat was stiff with frost so that he had trouble to unbutton and remove it, and the shoes were broken. He took a knife and carefully cut them off from the feet, noticing with quick pity that one ankle was swollen to twice its natural size. "Reck'n yo' mos' froze ter def!" said Jubilee Jim. "En starved too!" He rummaged on a shelf, found an iron skillet containing some broth and set it close to the blazing wood. Then, he drew the limp figure upon his couch and began to remove the clothing, now wet and clinging. As he opened the shirt, however, he started back with an exclamation. Well he knew what that jacket with its black and yellow-grey stripes meant! Had he not often seen the sullen chain-gang breaking stone on the mountain roads? The man who lay before him was a criminal in desperate flight in stolen garments! He could tie him fast, unconscious and helpless as he was, and leave the dog to guard him, while he went down to the town for officers. But as he thought, something else came to his mind. "Sick en in prison, en ye visited me!" he muttered. "De Good Man he say dat. Dis hyuh man done been in prison, en he moughty sick too. What dee Good Man do, Ah wondah? Reck'n he ain' gwine lock him up, not 'treckly, nohow!" He saw a crimson stain that spread over the stripes. He touched it--it was blood. Five minutes later, in the warming cabin, he was examining an opened wound in the shoulder of the insensible man. He washed it carefully and bound it up with some of the medicinal herbs that hung from the rafters. This done, he took the skillet from the fire-place and with a spoon forced a little of the hot liquid, drop by drop, between the clenched teeth. Under these ministrations a semblance of life began to return to the exhausted frame, and with it the chilled body rushed into a fever. The head began to roll from side to side and the lips to mutter indistinguishably. The hound had grown quiet now, and released from the chain, came to sniff at the bunk. All at once he flung up his great head with a low howl, then, crouching, licked the nerveless hand that hung down. [Illustration: All at once the hound flung up his great head with a low howl, then, crouching, licked the nerveless hand that hung down] Jubilee Jim looked in startled amaze, then seized the lantern and held it close. "Who dis hyuh?" he said. As if at the challenge, the eyes in the white face opened and for a single instant consciousness flickered there. "Jube--" said a weak voice, "you--old--scoundrel--" Then the eyes closed and the mutterings recommenced.