As the day advanced Darrell grew gradually but steadily worse. After the
excitement of the night had passed a reaction set in; he felt utterly
exhausted and miserable, the pain returned with redoubled violence, and
the fever increased perceptibly from hour to hour.
He was keenly observant of those about him, and he could not but note
how soon the tragedy of the preceding night seemed forgotten. Some
bemoaned the loss of money or valuables; a few, more fortunate, related
how they had outwitted the robbers and escaped with trivial loss, but
only an occasional careless word of pity was heard for the young
stranger who had met so sad a fate. So quickly and completely does one
human atom sink out of sight! It is like the dropping of a pebble in the
sea: a momentary ripple, that is all!
About noon Parkinson, who had sought to while away the tedium of the
journey by an interview with Darrell, became somewhat alarmed at the
latter's condition and went in search of a physician. He returned with
the one who had been summoned to Whitcomb's aid. He was an eastern
practitioner, and, unfortunately for Darrell, was not so familiar with
the peculiar symptoms in his case as a western physician would have
been.
"He has a high fever," he remarked to Parkinson a little later, as he
seated himself beside Darrell to watch the effect of the remedies
administered, "but I do not apprehend any danger. I have given him
something to abate the fever and induce sleep. If necessary, I will
write out a prescription which he can have filled on his arrival at
Ophir, but I think in a few days he will be all right."
They were now approaching the continental divide, the scenery moment by
moment growing in sublimity and grandeur. Darrell soon sank into a
sleep, light and broken at first, but which grew deeper and heavier. For
more than an hour he slept, unconscious that the rugged scenes through
which he was then passing were to become part of his future life; that
each cliff and crag and mountain-peak was to be to him an open book,
whose secrets would leave their indelible impress upon his heart and
brain, revealing to him the breadth and length, the depth and height of
life, moulding his soul anew into nobler, more symmetrical proportions.
At last the rocks suddenly parted, like sentinels making way for the
approaching train, disclosing a broad, sunlit plateau, from which rose,
in gracefully rounded contours, a pine-covered mountain, about whose
base nestled the little city of Ophir, while in the background stretched
the majestic range of the great divide.
A crowd could be seen congregated about the depot, for tidings of the
night's tragedy had preceded the train by several hours, and Whitcomb
from his early boyhood had been a universal favorite in Ophir, while his
uncle was one of its wealthiest, most influential citizens.