Before midnight Dick was in a raging fever.  In delirium he tossed from side to side, sometimes silent for long stretches, then babbling fragments of forgotten scenes rescued by his memory automatically from the wild and picturesque past of the man.  Now he fancied himself again a schoolboy, now a ranger in Arizona, now mushing on the snow trails of Alaska.  At times he would imagine that he was defending his mine against attacking strikers, or that he was combing the Rincons for horse thieves.  Out of his turbid past flared for an instant dramatic moments of comedy or tragedy.  These passed like the scenes of a motion-picture story, giving place to something else.

In the end he came back always to the adventure he was still living.

“You’re a spy....  You’re a liar and a cheat....  You imposed yourself upon my hospitality under false pretenses....  I hate myself for breathing the same air as you.”  He would break off to laugh foolishly, in a high-pitched note of derision at himself.  “Stand up, Dick Gordon, and hear the lady tell you what a coyote you are.  Stan’ up and face the music, you quitter.  Liar ... spy ... cheat!  That’s you, Dick Gordon, un’erstand?”

Or the sick mind of the man would forget for the moment that they had quarreled.  His tongue would run over conversations that they had had, cherishing and repeating over and over again her gay little quips and sallies or her light phrases.

“Valencia Valdes is as God made her.  Now you’re throwing sixes, ma’am.  Sure she’s like that.  The devil helped a heap to make most of us what we are, but I reckon God made that little lady early in the mo’ning when He was feeling fine....  Say, I wish you’d look at me like that again and light up with another of them dimply smiles.  I got a surprise for you, Princess of the Rio Chama.  Honest, I have.  Sure as you’re a foot high....  Never you mind what it is.  Just you wait a while and I’ll spring it when the time’s good and ready.  I got to wait till the papers come.  See? ...  Oh, shucks, you’re sore at me again!  Liar ... cheat ... spy!  Say, I know when I’ve had a-plenty.  She don’t like me.  I’m goin’ to pull my freight for the Kotzebue country up in Alaska.

  ’On the road to Kotzebue, optimistic through and through,
  We’ll hit the trail together, boy, once more, jest me an’ you.’

Funny how women act, ain’t it?  Stand up and take your medicine—­liar ... cheat ... spy!  She said it, didn’t she?  Well, then, it must be so.  What you kickin’ about?”

So he would run on until the fever had for the hour exhausted itself and he lay still among the pillows.  Sometimes he talked the strong language of the man in battle with other men, but even in his oaths there was nothing of vulgarity.

Mrs. Corbett took the bulk of the nursing on her own broad fat shoulders, but during the day she was often relieved by her maid while she got a few hours of sleep.