We fussed around like that for half an hour, and then Mark said he was tired. He tossed the rope off to the side of the tent where there was a sapling growing about fifteen feet away.
“Better get some more firewood,” says Collins, and he and Jiggins and I went off looking for dry sticks. Mark didn’t go far, though. While we were busy he tied his rope tight to the tree and carried one end up and pushed it under the tent. There was about twenty feet to spare, so he cut that off and brought it inside.
Of course, I didn’t know that till afterward, but he told me just how he did it. The piece of rope he cut off he laid through the tent from one end to the other about a foot from the side where our feet would go. So nobody’d notice it he pushed it down under the boughs we had to sleep on. Then he went back and got an armful of sticks and threw them down by the fire. When we got back with our loads he lay there with his eyes shut, looking as sleepy as an old frog. He yawned and yawned and rubbed his eyes and said he guessed he’d go to bed. I went in with him.
We got fixed before Collins and Jiggins were through their smoke.
“Move around c-c-consid’able,” says Mark in a whisper. “Sort of git them used to h-h-havin’ you rub against them.”
I couldn’t see any sense to that, but, all the same, I said I’d do it. You can’t see any sense to lots of things Mark wants you to do, but usually you find out he knew what he was talking about.
“K-k-keep awake if you can,” he says next, stuttering like anything. “I’ll p-pinch you every little while, and you p-pinch me. That’ll do it, I guess.”
Then Jiggins and Collins came in. Collins laid down next to me, and Jiggins took the other end. They said good night as polite as if we were back home instead of out in the woods, or as if they were visitors instead of guards. Mark and I said good night back again, and then everybody kept quiet for a spell. I got drowsy.
The next thing that happened was Jiggins speaking.
“For goodness’ sake, son,” says he to Mark, “keep still. Be quiet. You roll like a boat in a heavy sea. Go to sleep.”