"Please excuse me this time, old fellow," laughed the other. "I'm very well satisfied to stand on the earth as I am just now, and don't hanker about getting any nearer the clouds. I leave all that ambition to others, and particularly animals used to climbing trees. How about the rest of the tent, Elmer?"
"Pegged down so solid that a mouse would have trouble crawling under," came the immediate and confident response.
"That means if our friend Diablo is as hungry as we believe, and is determined to make another of his raids on our grub, he's just got to take advantage of the open door, eh, Elmer?"
"That's just what he does," replied the scout leader. "And we're going to get him one way or the other, going or coming. If he happens to miss getting caught as he trips into the tent, he won't be so lucky when he comes out. You see, at that time he's apt to have his arms full of the things we left around loose. He's greedy, like all monkeys, and will try to carry as much he can. Then he can't see quite so well where to step. Flip! bang! and there you are! Lil Artha hit it closer than he thought when he said everything was lovely and the goose hung high! We expect our goose to do just that same thing."
"Huh! I guess this is what they call putting your foot in it, eh, Elmer?" chuckled Mark.
"We hope it will be, that's right. But as everything has been done to a turn, don't you think we'd better hunt out our blankets? Perhaps Diablo may be watching us right now, crazy to get started on his raid. And then again, it may be he's far away from here to-night, and we'll find we've had all our trouble for our pains."
"But you don't think that last, honest now, Elmer?" queried Mark.
"If I did I wouldn't have gone to all the trouble I did," returned the other. "Take one last look over your camera, and the flashlight powder cartridge. All O. K. is it? Then let's leave here, and trust to luck for the rest."
"I don't believe I'll get much sleep, for expecting to hear a racket!" Mark declared, as they walked conspicuously away from the vicinity of the store tent, so that the keen-eyed monkey would see them, if, as they suspected, Diablo were hiding somewhere close by, waiting for his chance to make another descent on the camp where all those delicious dainties were kept, to which he had grown accustomed during the period of his captivity—and liberty without these could not be proving all it was cracked up to be.
"Oh! I wouldn't let a little thing like this keep me awake," said Elmer.