“But this feels so nice and cool,” complained Bumpus.
“It may now, all right, but after a while, when you sleep, it’ll begin to draw like everything; and the chances are, you’ll look like a boiled lobster on one side of your face by morning. I’ve been there myself, and know how it smarts and burns.”
“Thank you, Thad, for the advice, and I’ll take advantage of it right away,” declared the stout scout, sweetly. “Ain’t it the best thing ever to have a chum or two along, like Thad and Allan, who know so many things? Why, if it wasn’t for them, the rest of us would look like the babes in the woods.”
“Let up on that chatter, please, Bumpus,” grumbled Step Hen. “It’s gettin’ awful late, and we ought to been asleep long ago.”
“Yes, button up, Bumpus, I’d rather hear you snore than talk just now,” came from under the blanket that Giraffe had wrapped himself in, much after the style of a mummy.
“All right. I’ll just lie on my back, then, and try to accommodate you,” the other shot back.
“I’ve got one of my shoes handy, remember, and if you so much as give one little snort I mean to shy it over in that corner,” Giraffe threatened.
The guides had been talking quietly among themselves, and when Thad saw Sebattis open the door and slip out, he could give a pretty good guess what the Indian meant to do. Perhaps he suspected that the hoboes, lacking a boat with which to make their flight easier as long as the river continued navigable, might return in numbers later in the night, in order to help themselves from the stock of Oldtown canvas canoes owned by the scouts’ party.
Yes, the shrewd Penobscot Indian did not mean that such a disaster should come to pass; and doubtless he and his fellow-guides had arranged for sentry duty by turns during the entire night.
Thad felt perfectly secure with such wide-awake videttes to look out for the approach of the enemy. He would have gladly taken his turn on post if asked; but it seemed as though the three guides considered that a part of their duty. They had an easy enough task as it was, with these boys so willing to paddle in turn, make fires, help cook the meals, and do all sorts of things that generally the guide has fall on his shoulders alone.