Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. A FRIEND IN NEED the first time in his life Christopher Mott spent a sleepless night. Just before morning he fell into a doze, but at five o'clock, his hour for rising, he woke with a start. He lay quietly for a moment, wondering what had happened. He seemed to be in a strange place. He could hardly distinguish the objects about him; they were vague of outline and unreal. His head hurt him and he wished to rub it, but his hand was too heavy to lift. " I must get up," he thought. He again opened his eyes, and this time he was very much startled. It was about midnight. He could tell that by the stillness, by the tones of the ticking clock, by the look of the world through the window. A moment before the pale light of the morning had been about him, and now it was night again. That was very strange. His head felt better, buthe was weak. Perhaps he was dreaming. He was certainly passing a very restless night. He would try and sleep and not dream. He heard a movement in the room, and his heart stood still. He listened, and was sure that someone was near him. He turned his head slowly, silently, on the pillow and looked. He could distinguish a dim figure near the window. There was a man sitting in his rocker. He tried to speak, but it was some time before he could hear himself say, "Who are you?" His voice was too feeble. It could not be heard. He remembered now that he had tried to speak before in his dreams and no one heard him. " I will sleep," he said, "and not dream." He tried to recall what he had been so distressed about before going to bed. Then he remembered that it was because he could not make the young salvias and coleus he was planting stay in the ground. It had been terrible. As fast as he put them in their holes they popped out again. If by...