Just before dark on the fifth day, Tom strolled into the cook tent, going to the rear and parting the curtain.

“How do you feel, now?” Reade asked in a whisper.

“Much stronger, senor,” came the grateful answer.  “Last night, when your servant slept, I rose and walked about the tent a little to find the use of my legs again.  To-day, when alone, I did the same thing.  By morning I shall be fit to walk once more.  Senor, do not think me ungrateful if you come into this tent, some morning, soon, and find my end of it deserted.  I shall go, but I shall never forget you.”

“You will please yourself, sir,” Tom answered, simply.  “Yet I beg you not to attempt to leave until you are able to take care of yourself.  We shall not think you ungrateful if it be a long time before we hear from you again.  Another thing, sir.  When you go do not fail to take with you, in your pockets, food enough to last you for some days.”

“I—­I cannot pay for it,” hesitated the stranger.  “Nor, for the present, can I offer to pay you back the money you have expended on my medicines.”

“Now, who said anything about that?” Tom asked, nearly as gruffly as it was possible for him to speak to a sick man.  “Pay for nothing here, sir, and do not worry about it, either.  You do not know how much pleasure your coming has given us.  We needed something to do needed it with an aching want that would not be stilled.  Looking after you, sir, has been a very welcome treat to us.”

“You have been kinder to me, senores, than any one has been to me in many years,” murmured the stranger, tears starting to his eyes.

“There, there!  Forget it,” urged Tom.

“Good evening, Don Luis!” sounded Harry’s voice outside.  “Ah, Dr. Tisco.”

“That’s our warning to stop talking,” whispered Tom in the stranger’s ear, then rose and slipped outside the curtain.

“Where is Senor Reade?” inquired Don Luis.

“Any one calling me?” inquired Tom, looking out of the cook tent.  “Ah, good evening, gentlemen.”

Tom stepped outside, offering his hand.  As this was the first time of late that he had made any such overture to the mine owner, Montez was quick to grasp the hope that it conveyed.

“You are not comfortable here, Senor Reade,” said Don Luis, looking about.  “I regret it the more when I remember how much room I have under my poor roof.  Why don’t you move up there, at once.  There are several apartments any one of which you may have.”

“On the contrary we are very comfortable here,” Tom rejoined, seating himself on the ground.  “We have lived the open-air life so much that we are really happier in a tent than we could be in any house.”

“I cannot understand why you can feel so about it,” murmured the Mexican stepping to the entrance of the larger tent and glancing inside.  “I will admit, Senor Reade, that you keep a very tidy house under canvas, and your wants may be extremely simple.  But a house offers comforts that cannot possibly be found in a tent like this.  And the other is still smaller and more cheerless,” he added, crossing into the other tent.