I should have been amazed and incredulous if
anyone had told me that poor Bill Hayden was to play the deciding part in
our affairs.
He lay now in his bunk, tossing restlessly and muttering once in a while to
himself. When I went over and asked if there was anything that I could do
for him, he raised himself on his elbow and stared at me more stupidly than
ever. It seemed to come to him slowly who I was. After a while he made out
my face by the light of the dim, swinging lantern, and thanked me, and said
if I would be so good as to give him a drink of water--He never completed
the sentence; but I brought him a drink carefully, and when he had finished
it, he thanked me again and leaned wearily back.
His face seemed dark by the lantern-light, and I judged that it was still
flushed. Muttering something about a "pain in his innards," he apparently
went to sleep, and I climbed into my own bunk. The lantern swung more and
more irregularly, and Bill tossed with ever-increasing uneasiness. When at
last I dozed off, my own sleep was fitful, and shortly I woke with a start.
Others, too, had waked, and I heard questions flung back and forth:--
"Who was that yelled?"
"Did you hear that? Tell me, did you hear it?"
Some one spoke of ghosts,--none of us laughed,--and Neddie Benson whimpered
something about the lady who told fortunes.
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