CHAPTER XIV
BILLY'S NOCTURNAL ADVENTURE
It was dark in the camp, but Billy, as he stole out of the tent, could distinguish a dark form moving swiftly down the camp street, and followed without making any noise, taking care to keep as much as possible in the shadow.
Unless the person he was following should happen to look around, there was very little danger of his being seen, but he took all the precautions he could to avoid being detected.
"It is not a thief," he said to himself, "and it isn't any one who has designs on one of the boats. He left that tent, but who is he and what does he want?"
The silent figure, moving rapidly forward, presently left the line of tents, and made for the cottage occupied by the doctor.
"I wonder if it is the doctor walking in his sleep?" thought Billy.
"That would be a great joke, wouldn't it?"
He thought he saw a flash of light for a moment, but was not sure of this, and hurried on after the midnight prowler, having just time to see him enter the window of the doctor's cottage.
"Can it be the doctor after all?" he muttered.
"That would be funny after all. I wish I had brought my light with me. That's just like me, though, thinking of things when it is too late." He stepped under the front window of the cottage, through which he had seen the figure disappear and listened:
"I don't hear anything," he muttered. "I wonder if it could have been the doctor? Burglars would have no good excuse for coming to the camp. Who is it anyhow?"
Listening intently, he fancied he could hear some one moving about in the cottage, and then the steps approached the window.
He was about to step back, but was a little too late in that, as he had been in thinking of his pocket light.
In another moment some one dropped out of the window, and he was upset most unceremoniously.
The person, whoever it was, had landed on his head and shoulders, and he was thrown down in an instant.
"Hello! who is that?" he exclaimed, as he felt himself lying on the bare and rather damp ground.
Some one was struggling to his feet with a startled exclamation, and Billy snatched quickly at him, and caught a leg or an arm, he could not be certain which.
"I've got you now!" he cried, "and you've got to give an account of yourself, my man!"
The stranger, whoever he was, certainly did give an account of himself, but not in the manner which Billy meant.
There was a sudden shooting out of a brawny fist, and Billy was taken between the eyes, and for a moment saw stars.
"Ouch!" he ejaculated, letting go of the person he had seized,
Then somebody rolled him over with a quick move of the foot, and by the time the unfortunate joker arose his nocturnal combatant was out of sight, as well as hearing.
"H'm! that's too bad!" sputtered Billy. "I don't know now whether it was a burglar, a nightmare, or what it was. I think I'd better go back to bed. Being out in the air may have done me a lot of good, but I guess I've had enough of it."
With this conclusion he set out upon his return, but when he reached the line of tents was not certain whether he was in the right one or not, and began studying the appearance of things as much as he could by the very uncertain light.
"I wonder if this is our street after all?" he asked himself. "Let me see, we are the sixth tent from the top. Or is it the seventh? Six one way and seven the other, I guess. Wait till I see."
Then he went on, counting the tents one by one till he came to the sixth from the start.
The flap was thrown back, and Billy made up his mind that he was at the right one and went in.
When he found his cot, however, he found some one on it.
"H'm! that's young J.W., and I must not awaken him," he muttered.
As a natural consequence his own cot must be just opposite Jesse
W.'s, and he turned and went in that direction.
To his surprise he found the other cot occupied also.
"Hello, who is that?" asked Harry Dickson.
"It's me," said Billy. "I guess I must have got in the wrong tent. Have I been walking in my sleep?"
"How should I know?" laughed Harry. "You are in the wrong tent, that's all I do know. Arthur and I have this tent. Aren't you in with young Jesse W. Smith?"
"I thought I was," said Billy dolefully, "but I seem to have got twisted up a bit to-night. I've had the stomach ache."
"That will twist any one," chuckled Harry, "but really it is no laughing matter, my boy."
"No, I should say not. Well, I think I had better cut my call short.
Would you kindly show me the way to my own tent?"
This was said in such a comical, and at the same time doleful tone, that Harry was forced to laugh.
"Why, certainly," he chuckled. "You've got on the wrong street, that is all. You can go through right here without having to go to the top or bottom and then down or up."
"Who is on the other side of the street?" asked Billy.
"Jones and Robinson."
"H'm! and they are right back of us. All right. I guess I can find the way now all right."
Then Billy started to go between two tents so as to reach his own on the next camp street.
"Look out for—-"
"Ouch! what's that?"
Harry was about to warn him to look out for the tent ropes, but Billy tumbled over them before he could be warned.
"I am having all sorts of fun to-night!" he said in a tone of disgust, as he picked himself up and made his way through to the other street.
Then he found his own tent and went in, but to make sure, even after he had found his bed unoccupied, got out his pocket light and turned it on.
"That's all right," he muttered, "but the next time I go wandering about the camp of a night without a light I'll stay at home!"
Either the light flashing in young J.W. Smith's face or Billy's mutterings awoke that young gentleman, and he sat up in bed, asking in a very drowsy tone:
"Is it time to get up, Billy? What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing, I've been a bit restless, that's all, but I feel better now, so go to sleep, J.W., and get a good night's rest."
At that moment a distant church clock struck twelve, and then a rooster crowed.
"H'm! guess it is time I got to sleep!" grunted Billy, as he tumbled into bed, put out his light and was soon fast asleep.
In the morning when he and young Smith arose, the latter said to him in some surprise:
"Why, Billy, what is the matter, what have you been doing? You have got the blackest eye I ever saw on a boy."
"Me?" cried Billy. "Are you sure? Isn't it dirt? Where should
I have been to get a black eye?"
"I am sure I don't know, but that's what it is all right. Look at it yourself, Billy, and see if it is not."
There was a little looking glass in the tent, and Billy now surveyed himself in this, finding that young Smith was right, and that he did have one beautiful black eye, the other being only slightly discolored.
He knew where he had obtained it, but did not think it necessary to explain the matter to young Smith.
"I'll wait and see who has the most to say about it," he thought, "and then I will know who it was that I followed last night, who it was that gave me this lovely decoration."
When he met the boys, however, all of them had something to say, and
Harry said with a laugh:
"You must have got that when you stumbled over the tent rope last night, Billy."
"Yes, I guess I did," said Billy, but to himself he remarked that now there was very little chance of learning the truth.