“We’re not more’n a mile to water now”—Smith had made sure of his country this time—“and we’ll hold the cattle in the brush and take turns watchin’.”
“It’s a go with me,” answered Tubbs, yawning until his jaws cracked. “I’m asleep now.”
Ralston and Babe knew that Smith would camp for several hours in the creek-bottom, so they dropped into a gulch and waited.
“They’ll picket their horses first, then one of them will keep watch while the other sleeps. Very likely Tubbs will be the first guard, and, unless I’m mistaken, Tubbs will be dead to the world in fifteen minutes—though, maybe, he’s too scared to sleep.” Ralston’s surmise proved to be correct in every particular.
After they had picketed their horses, Smith told Tubbs to keep watch for a couple of hours, while he slept.
“Couldn’t we jest switch that programme around?” inquired Tubbs plaintively. “I can’t hardly keep my eyes open.”
“Do as I tell you,” Smith returned sharply.
Tubbs eyed him with envy as he spread down his own and Tubbs’s saddle-blankets.
“I ain’t what you’d call ‘crazy with the heat.’” Tubbs shivered. “Couldn’t I crawl under one of them blankets with you?”
“You bet you can’t. I’d jest as lief sleep with a bull-snake as a man,” snorted Smith in disgust, and, pulling the blankets about his ears, was lost in oblivion.