“I don’t know,” said Ted. “Some day we’ll look up the animals and see if any of them live around here.”
The talk was resumed and under cover of it Buck and Ted conferred. “You think I had better sleep in another tent than the one you are going to have?” Buck asked.
“I think so,” nodded Ted. “You take the one on that end and I’ll take the one at this end. We’ll put the smaller fellows in the two middle tents and that will reassure them a little more.”
“Do you think they are going to be scared?”
“No, not when they get used to the camp, but you see they didn’t have much in the way of daylight today while here and the night seems so black. Probably a lot of them won’t sleep and it will seem an age before the sun comes up tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch. “I guess we had better turn in now.”
The word to this effect was passed around and the boys were not reluctant to turn in. Ted told off Bob Gilmore as the captain of one tent and Charlie Wells as leader of the other one.
“Each one of you will undress by the light of a single lantern which will be hung from the pole of the tent,” he directed. “As soon as the last man is in bed the captain of that tent will personally put out the light. No loud talking after you are in your beds, in fact, none at all would be better, because you’ll keep somebody else awake. Now go to it.”
The fires burned low and the four tents glowed with a subdued light as the boys all prepared for bed. In the tent with Ted was little Tom Clayton and three other fine young fellows and they were speedily in their beds which they had built from boughs and packed leaves. Ted had purposely placed the bed of the small boy beside his own. They were all in under their blankets when he put out the light and crawled in between his own.
The talking in the other tents died down as the lights were extinguished. That some of the boys were restless was attested to by the rustling turnings in their beds. One boy had gathered his boughs with too much wood attached to the smaller branches and they made him so uneasy and uncomfortable that he was compelled to throw most of it out and sleep closer to the canvas covering that served as a tent floor. Some deep breathing announced that a few boys had fallen instantly asleep, tired out with the events of the day.
There was no talking on the part of the boys in Ted’s tent, inspired probably by his presence and the little boy at least did not remain awake long. Ted’s eyes began to close and the last sounds and impressions were somewhat dim. The fire snapped once or twice, the wind blew with a very faint rustle of leaves, and a katydid started his endless fiddling, being joined by several others who tried to out-fiddle him. Then Ted went to sleep.