“Well, I don’t know but that it would be a good idea,” agreed Jerry, after a moment of thought. “Of course we’re a good way from where that fellow shot at us, but that isn’t saying he hasn’t some confederates in this place. Yes, it wouldn’t be a bad plan to sit the night out in three watches. They won’t be such very long ones. I’ll take first, as I can always sleep better in the rear end of the night.”
“I wake up early, so I’ll take last watch,” volunteered Ned.
This gave Bob the middle watch, and he and Ned went to bed about nine o’clock, Jerry making a fire not far from the airship, so the blaze would serve to illuminate a space around the craft.
Somehow Jerry was distinctly nervous as he assumed his watch. There had been strenuous times since he and his chums had come to Square Z ranch, and there had been much to cause them worry. Of course, the disappearance of the professor was the most important. The loss of the cattle was serious, naturally, but both Mr. Baker and Mr. Slade were men of wealth and would not be ruined even if they lost the whole ranch. Still, Jerry and his chums felt an eager desire to solve the mystery. They felt the same excitement and determination as when trying to win a baseball or football championship.
Though Jerry kept eager watch, his vigil was not disturbed save by the approach of timid animals of the night, which made off at the sight of the fire.
Nor were the watches of Bob or Ned fruitful of any results. Ned thought, just as the east was beginning to be light, that he heard a suspicious sound at the rear of the airship. He ran to the place immediately but all he saw was a small deer that was nosing the rudder and licking it, doubtless with the hope that it was coated with salt. The animal sprang away in alarm at the lad’s approach.
“Well, this is getting pretty close to our time limit,” observed Jerry as, after breakfast, they set off through the air once more. “If we don’t have any luck now——”
“It’s give up for ours!” declared Ned with a sigh.
It was toward noon, when they were flying over a small valley, that Bob, looking down through the observation window in the floor of the cabin, cried: