" Then after a brief
pause he painfully stammered, "Joe, find your brother Jim, then both of
you go back to your mother and be once more her boys." He again became
silent and then, now that it was too late, he plainly showed, that
although he was a despised yegg, there was one place in this wide world
where there would be one true friend waiting in vain for his return, for
he slowly added, "Joe, believe me, there is no friend like mother and no
place like home."
Then came another hemorrhage and a stream of his life blood shot into
the air and then, with a last effort, he drew Joe's hands to his
parched, suffering lips, and while he covered them with kisses, the
rattling in his throat increased, then decreased, and finally
stopped--he had expired.
When Boston Frank returned with the water, he only found his dead pal,
as Joe, horror stricken by the dead man's glassy stare, by the blood
covered corpse, by the quietude of the night and all the horrors which
had transpired, had fled into the night as if furies and demons were
pursuing him, bent only upon placing as much space as possible between
his living self and the gruesome tragedy he had left behind. He climbed
over fences and forced his way through hedges; forded creeks and swam
streams, until from his frantic exertions he became so completely
exhausted that when he fell into a clump of bushes he was unable to
rise, and gradually sank into a deep sleep.
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