To his exhaustion fever presently succeeded, and he began to grow
restless. The heat too seemed to invade his retreat, and from time to
time the little patch of blue sky was totally obscured by clouds of
smoke. He amused himself with watching a lizard who was investigating a
folded piece of paper, whose elasticity gave the little creature lively
apprehensions of its vitality. At last he could stand the stillness of
his retreat and his supine position no longer, and rolled himself out
of the bed of leaves that Teresa had so carefully prepared for him. He
rose to his feet stiff and sore, and, supporting himself by the nearest
tree, moved a few steps from the dead ashes of the camp-fire. The
movement frightened the lizard, who abandoned the paper and fled. With
a satirical recollection of Brace and his "ridiculous" discovery
through the medium of this animal, he stooped and picked up the paper.
"Like as not," he said to himself, with grim irony, "these yer lizards
are in the discovery business. P'r'aps this may lead to another
mystery;" and he began to unfold the paper with a smile.
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