At noon Jack was still sleeping.  He slept on through the last hours of the day.

“The first long stretch he has had,” ran the bulletin, from tongue to tongue, “and real sleep, too—­the kind that counts!”

In the late afternoon, when the coolness and the shadows of evening were creeping in at the doors and windows, the doctor, Peter Mortimer, the father, and Firio were on the veranda, while Mrs. Galway was on watch by the bedside.

“He’s waking!” she came out to whisper.

The doctor hastened past her into the sick-room.  As he entered, Jack looked up with a bright, puzzled light in his eyes.

“Just what does this mean?” he asked.  “Just how does it happen that I am here?  I thought that I—­”

“We brought you in some days ago,” the doctor explained.  “And since you took the water-hole your mind has been enjoying a little vacation, while we moved your body about as we pleased.”

“I took the water-hole, then!  And Firio?  Firio?  He—­”

“He is just waiting outside to congratulate you on the re-establishment of the old cordial relations between mind and body,” the doctor returned; and slipped out to call Firio and to announce:  “He is right as rain, right as rain!” news that Mrs. Galway set forth immediately to herald through the community.

As for Firio, he strode into Jack’s presence with the air of conqueror, sage, and prophet in one.

“Is it really you, Firio?  Come here, so that I can feel of you and make sure, you son of the sun!”

Jack put out his thin, white hand to Firio, and the velvet of Firio’s eyes was very soft, indeed.

“Did you know when they brought you in?” Jack asked.

“When burro stumble I feel ouch and see desert and then I drift away up to sky again,” answered Firio.  “All right now, eh?  Pretty soon you so strong I have to broil five—­six—­seven quail a day and still you hungry!”

The doctor who had been looking on from the doorway felt a vigorous touch on the arm and turned to hear John Wingfield, Sr. asking him to make way.  With a grimace approaching a scowl he drew back free of Jack’s sight and held up his hand in protest.  “You had better not excite him!” he whispered.

“But I am his father!” said John Wingfield, Sr. with something of his old, masterful manner in a moment of irritation, as he pushed by the doctor.  He paused rather abruptly when his eyes met Jack’s.  A faint flush, appearing in Jack’s cheeks, only emphasized his wanness and the whiteness of his neck and chin and forehead.

“Well, Jack, right as rain, they say!  I knew you would come out all right!  It was in the blood that—­” and the rest of John Wingfield, Sr.’s speech fell away into inarticulateness.

It was a weak, emaciated son, this son whom he saw in contrast to the one who had entered his office unannounced one morning; and yet the father now felt that same indefinable radiation of calm strength closing his throat that he had felt then.  Jack was looking steadily in his father’s direction, but through him as through a thin shadow and into the distance.  He smiled, but very faintly and very meaningly.