Another hour they sat silently beside him.  Slowly the dark over the eastern hill lightened to a gray.  Then the gray paled until a flush of pink was there, and they could see about them in the chill of the morning.

Then came a silence that startled them all.  The drum had stopped, and the night-long vibrations ceased from their ears.

They looked toward the little man with relief, for the drumming had tortured him.  But his breathing was shallow and irregular now, and from time to time they could hear a rattle in his throat.  His eyes, when he opened them, were looking far off.  He was turning restlessly and muttering again.  She took his hands and found them cold and moist.

“His fever must have broken,” she said, hopefully.  The little man opened his eyes to look up at her, and spoke, though absently, and not as if he saw her.

“They will have a spade with them when they come, never fear.  And the spot must not be forgotten—­three hundred yards north to the dwarf cedar, then straight over the ridge and half-way down, to the other cedar below the sandstone—­and uncoffined, with the book here in this pocket where I have it.  ’Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:  thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:  and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’”

He started up in terror of something that seemed to be behind him, but fell back, and a moment later was rambling off through some sermon of the bygone year.

“Sometimes, brethren, it has seemed to my inner soul that Christ came not alone to reveal God to man, but to reveal man to God; taking on that human form to reconcile the Father to our sins.  Sometimes I have thought He might so well have done this that God would view our sins as we view the faults of our well-loved little children—­loving us through all—­perhaps touched—­even more amused than offended, at our childish stumblings in these blind, twisted paths of right and wrong; knowing at the last He should save the least of us who have been most awkward.  But, oh, brethren! beware of the sin for which you cannot win forgiveness from that other God, that spirit of the true Father, fixed forever in the breast of each of you.”

The light was coming swiftly.  Already their fire had paled, and the embers, but a little before glowing red, seemed now to be only white ashes.

From over the ridge back of them, whence had come the notes of the funeral-drum, an Indian now slouched toward them, drawn by curiosity; stopping to look, then advancing, to stop again.

At length he stood close by them, silent, gazing.  Then, as if understanding, he spoke to Follett.

“Big sick—­go get big medicine!  Then you give chitcup!”

He ran swiftly back, disappearing over the ridge.

The sick man was now delirious again, muttering disjointed texts and bits of old sermons with which the Lute of the Holy Ghost, young and ardent, had once thrilled the Saints.