Resolutely holding his mind in check after that, the boy finally succeeded in falling asleep though it required considerable force of character to control his feverish thoughts.
Several hours must have crept by when Dick chanced to awaken. One of his arms felt numb from the weight of his body which had been resting on it.
“I suppose I might as well throw a log on the fire while I’m about it,” he told himself, as, yawning, he commenced to push aside his blanket and crawl forth. “And a few swallows of that cool water wouldn’t go bad either, for I’m thirsty after all that salty ham I ate.”
The moon was well up in the heavens when he crept forth from the shelter of the tent and was shining just as brilliantly as on the preceding night. Without making any sort of noise calculated to disturb even a light sleeper Dick crossed over to where the flickering fire lay.
As he did so something caused him to glance beyond, and he felt a thrill as he believed he caught a glimpse of a crouching moving figure over by the bushes.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MYSTERY GROWS DEEPER
“Why, it’s gone!” muttered Dick, immediately afterwards, for the object that he had seen so dimly had now vanished.
He stepped over to the red ashes and threw on some small stuff that, taking fire immediately, blazed up brightly and allowed him to see much better.
“I wonder if it slipped into those bushes, or went around another way?” he asked himself.
Was it one of the campers he had seen slipping along in a bent-over attitude, or could it have been a shadow moving? Dick’s heart was thumping against his ribs, for he was more or less excited over the occurrence, especially after what had happened on the preceding night.