Page:To Alaska for Gold.djvu/91

Rh face was as white as chalk, and they saw at a glance that he had fainted.

"Get some water, Randy," said Earl, as he began to work over the prostrate figure. "I wonder if there is a doctor handy. He looks as if he was half starved to death."

As Randy ran off, a crowd began to collect, a few to sympathize, but the majority to look on merely in curiosity or to make audible comments that it served the boy right, since he had no business to steal a trip.

"Got a crazy notion to go to the gold fields, I reckon," said one bystander. "He ought to be home where his mamma could spank him."

At this there was a coarse laugh, which was quickly hushed when another man, a young fellow of not more than twenty-three, stepped forward, and announced that he was a doctor. He soon succeeded in bringing Fred around.

"He wants something to eat as much as anything," said the newcomer. "There is a restaurant over yonder. Better take him there and get him some soup and stale bread—his stomach isn't strong enough to bear a regular meal."

Randy and Earl thanked the doctor and did as advised, while the crowd gradually melted away to tend to its own affairs. Fred was ravenously hungry, yet he ate with difficulty when the food was set before him.

"I've had nothing to eat for about forty hours," he