“Say, have heart, wont yeou, partner, an’ please don’t aggravate the situation so bad? If yeou hear me a rollin’ off a list o’ dishes like the waiter does in a cheap chop house, don’t knock me any, ’cause like as not I’ll on’y be a talkin’ in my sleep.”
When they had devoured the last crumb of their limited supply of ham sandwiches the change in the campground was effected; and just as Jack had prophesied, the cold wind did not seem to strike them as keenly as before.
“Stand it as long as you can, Perk,” Jack told his mate, before they thought of turning in, “when you get to shivering too much, the only thing to do is to get up, and start your daily dozen in exercising your arms violently; but make no noise on your life. We don’t know when one of those brutes may be prowling close by, and upset all our tricks by knocking over the apple cart.”
“Needn’t fear I’m sech a silly as that, ole hoss,” Perk assured him, indignantly. “But what I wanter ask is why couldn’t some fellers that knowed haow to slip daown a rope withaout burnin’ their hands to a crisp, drop into that same valley as neat as wax, while night hung on?”
“Simple as falling off a log, that’s okay, Perk, old pal; if only you happened to have a rope, and it was long enough to do the business.”
“Shucks! allers is some kinder drawback to every game I hatch up—we aint got any rope fur a fack; which is too bad, aint it? Guess as haow if we ever do get inside that ere valley we’ll shore have to sneak in by way o’ the narrer little pass. If so be they got a sentry on deck there, why, we’ll have to poke him in the neck, an’ put the gink to sleep.”
“Too early to be settling that matter, before we’ve located things,” Jack argued. “Always a chance of something popping up that we don’t know about, and which’d solve our troubles. First let’s try and get a few winks of sleep, because I for one feel as though I needed it.”
It was fated to be about as mean a night as they ever could remember, and undoubtedly they had both experienced many poor ones. Jack managed to drop asleep, to awaken later on to find himself shivering, and with his teeth rattling like castanets in the dextrous slim fingers of a Spanish dancer.
Something was moving near by, and, looking that way he could just manage to make out, with the starry heavens as a background, a figure with numberless arms, so it seemed, shooting up and down with mathematical precision.
Jack chuckled, realizing how it must of necessity be his pal, Perk, who, also awakened by having shivers run over his entire system, had remembered the advice given him, and was doing his daily dozen several times over, to induce a circulation of warm blood in his extremities.