Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/198

182 with gray, was dirty and matted; he had three or four days' growth of beard. He was clothed as Alan had seen deck hands on the steamers attired; he was not less than fifty, Alan judged, though his condition made estimate difficult. When he sat up and looked about, it was plain that whiskey was only one of the forces working upon him—the other was fever which burned up and sustained him intermittently.

Lo!" he greeted Alan. "Where's shat damn Injin, hey? I knew Ben Corvet was shere—knew he was shere all time. 'Course he's shere; he got to be shere. That's shright. You go get 'im!"

"Who are you?" Alan asked.

"Say, who'r you? What t'hells syou doin' here? Never see you before . . . go—go get Ben Corvet. Jus' say Ben Corvet, Lu—luke's shere. Ben Corvet'll know Lu—luke all right; alwaysh, alwaysh knows me. . . ."

"What's the matter with you?" Alan had drawn back but now went to the man again. The first idea that this might have been merely some old sailor who had served Benjamin Corvet or, perhaps, had been a comrade in the earlier days, had been banished by the confident arrogance of the man's tone—an arrogance not to be explained, entirely, by whiskey or by the fever.

"How long have you been this way?" Alan demanded. "Where did you come from?" He put his hand on the wrist; it was very hot and dry; the pulse was racing, irregular; at seconds it seemed to stop; for other seconds it was continuous. The fellow coughed and bent forward. "What is it—pneumonia?" Alan tried to straighten him up.

"Gi' me drink! . . . Go get Ben Corvet, I tell you!