Then there occurred a whispering of which Blake caught the following:
"It's nearly half a teaspoonful. Enough to make five men sleep throughout eternity."
A moment later the host entered Blake's room. His manner was free from embarrassment. In one hand he held a glass containing water.
"Stranger, I don't want to disturb you, but it occurred to me just now that you looked as if you might be going to have a spell of sickness, so I thought I would bring you some medicine. I am willing to help a man, but I don't want him to be sick on my hands. I am a doctor, but I don't propose to keep a hospital."
"Then you'll put me to the trouble of pouring it down you, that's all. I am a mighty gentle sort of a fellow as long as everything goes on all right, but if a hitch occurs, why I am as rough as a swamp oak."
"Are you sure the medicine will not hurt me?"
"Hurt you! Why, it will do you good. Here, swallow it down."
Blake drank the contents of the glass. The host smiled, bowed, and withdrew. Then there followed another whispered conversation.
"Like a lamb. He'll be all right in a half-hour from now."
During fifteen or twenty minutes Blake lay quietly in bed. Then he got up, dressed himself noiselessly, arranged the bed covers to resemble the form of a man, took his saddlebags, stepped out at a back door, went to the stable, saddled his horse, mounted and rode up to a window and looked into the room which he had occupied. Cattle were tramping about the yard, and the noise made by the horse attracted no attention. He took a position so that he could, unobserved, see all that passed within the room. The "doctor" and the old woman soon entered. They made no attempt to speak in low tones.
"Whar is his saddlebags?" the woman asked.
"Under his head, I reckon. Snatch off the covers. He won't wake up."
The old woman pulled off the covers and uttered a cry of surprise. Blake tapped on the window glass.
"Say, Doc," he called, "bring me the rest of that morphine. You see, I have been a morphine eater for a number of years, but am trying to quit. Your dose came in pretty handy, for I was in a bad fix. I am all right now, and am much obliged to you. Good-night."
Less than a week from that time the "doctor" and his wife were in jail, charged with the murder of a traveler. They were hanged at Greenville last September.