“Oh, Pilescu — we’re too hot to be covered!” cried Paul, pushing away the rug.
“It will be very chilly in the early morning,” said Pilescu. “Very well — leave the rug half off now, and pull it on again later.”
Pilescu and Ranni made a very good job of tying the children to the tree. Now they were safe! The two men slid down the big tree to the ground. The monkeys fled away. The children talked drowsily for a while, and Peggy tried her hardest to keep awake and enjoy the strangeness of a night up a tree.
But her eyes were very heavy, and although she listened for a while to the enormously loud voices of some giant frogs in the nearby marsh, and the curious call of a bird that seemed to say, “Do do it, do do it,” over and over again, she was soon as fast asleep as the others.
As usual, Ranni and Pilescu took turn and turn about to watch. They both sat at the foot of the great tree, one at one side, the other at the other. Ranni took first turn, and then Pilescu.
Pilescu was very wide awake. He sat with his gun in his hand watching for any movement or sound nearby that might mean an enemy of some kind. He, too, heard the frogs, and the bird crying “Do do it, do do it.” He heard the trumpeting of far-off elephants, the roar of some big forest cat, maybe a leopard, and the stir of the wind in the branches of the trees.
And then, towards dawn, he heard something and saw something that was not bird or animal. Something or someone was creeping between the bushes, very slowly, very carefully. Pilescu stiffened, and took hold of his gun firmly. Could it be any of the Folk of the Secret Mountain?
The Something came nearer, and Pilescu put out a hand and shook Ranni carefully. Ranni awoke at once.
“There’s something strange over there,” whispered Pilescu. “I can only see a shadow moving. Do you suppose it’s a scout sent out by the Mountain Folk?”
Ranni peered between the bushes in the dim light of half-dawn. He, too, could see something moving.