Twice Perk got up, threw an armful of fuel on the dying fire, smoked a round of that “sweet” tobacco, cast a look of concern over toward where the stranded plane lay, shook his head doggedly and resumed his former position alongside the big boulder.
Apparently he had resolved to stay on duty throughout the entire night, and since Perk had a vein of doggedness in his disposition the chances were he would stick to his guns.
Perk may not have noticed it, but more than few times his chum’s covering would move just a trifle, allowing him to peep out and on each occasion Jack would chuckle as if vastly entertained, after which it was sleep again for him.
Midnight came and went.
Stars shone down upon the lonesome camp, gradually wheeling westward until each in turn passed beyond the lofty rim of the canyon walls while others climbed the eastern heavens to take their turn at peeping and eventually follow the track of those who were by that time doubtless setting beyond the genuine western horizon.
It must have been something like two in the morning when Perk waking up from a disturbed nap, in which he was beset by a pack of savage timber wolves with only a stout cudgel as a means of defense, caught a sound that sent a delightful quiver chasing up and down his spine.
“By gum! what was that now?” he asked himself, at the same time moving the gun from his knee to a more elevated position.
His tingling nerves announced the delight that filled his heart in contemplation of a possible chance to show how he could play guardian to a camp where innocence slept. Suddenly awakened from such a wild dream, Perk was in fine condition to see a pack of ferocious, gray, hungry, four-footed pirates of the waste places creeping up here, there, everywhere, with the intention of taking the camp by strategy and devouring every solitary inmate.
His fire happened to be low so that the light even close by could hardly be called worth while. Again Perk caught some sort of sound—to his excited mind it seemed similar to an animal’s nails scratching the dry sand just at that point where the high river tide was wont to reach its peak during the flood season.
Perk redoubled his efforts to see something moving while he nervously fingered his modern shooting iron, so radically different from those old guns used by the pioneer settlers of the virgin West in the early days of the far-flung frontier.