Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/19

Rh be too careful in these here cases." He made his bed in the open, on some boughs, under the saplings, and laid the bundle beside it, and tied a cord to it and to his arm when he laid him down to rest. But he was seen, when they all were down, save Billy and his new warder, sitting up against the rising moon, and not like a "Queen of Night palm" either, and passing his hand nervously over his "pumpkin" and glancing, apprehensively, it seemed, from Billy and his new mate to the wood-heap—perhaps he was thinking of mashed raw pumpkin.

Bogan gets a fright here through Jack Moonlight stumbling over him. Then he was seen no more, and in the morning, just as they were reckoning that he'd "gone off too," and worse calamity of all! had taken the tools, he came out of the scrub from another direction with his bundle and blankets on his shoulder, and looking as if he'd passed a bad night. He said, "Yer could never be too careful in these here cases. They was so —— cunnin', and allers turned agin them as was nearest an' dearest to 'em. That was a sure sign." Which reminds me that I could never see why it should be considered a sure, or even extra, or even one sign of insanity that patients turn against friends and relatives first, and cleave to strangers. Look more like a sign of returning, or temporary, sanity, the more I think of it. Next evening Billy was better, though he feared it coming on with the night. He had taken a great liking to the new man, whom he persisted in recognizing as a long-lost village school-mate. The swagman said he