By this time it had become quite dark, and the boys turned in, except for Phil, who drew the first tour of sentry duty. Warning him to keep his eyes and ears open every minute, Garry and Dick rolled into their blankets.
Phil was as restless as a cat on a hot plate. Every snapping twig or soughing of the breeze through the trees made him jump. He made constant patrols around the lean-to, snapping on his pocket electric light as soon as he got out of the range of the light afforded by the campfire.
Nothing, however, developed during his watch, and it was with a bit of relief that the end of the two and a half hour period came. He awakened Garry, who was to take the second watch, and soon was curled up in his blanket and fast asleep.
Garry felt much the same as Phil had, although he took things easier, for he was not of the sensitively nervous type as was Phil.
Nevertheless, he too was glad to call Dick. It was not that the boys were in any way cowards, for they were not. Had it been a human being whom they expected, they would have thought nothing of it; rather they would have considered it a welcome bit of excitement. But this was an entirely different matter—a creeping enemy that would come on them unawares, and which was more dangerous than human being or animal could have been.
Dick yawned and grumbled when Garry shook him, then he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and looked to see that his rifle was in good working order.
“Anything stirring?” he asked, as Garry handed over the electric torchlight to him.
“Nothing breezing yet; keep your eyes peeled,” whispered Garry.
Dick took a round of the lean-to, then running true to form, rummaged around till he found a package of cookies he had bought the previous day, and munched away at them as he watched. He kept his eyes glued to the spot where the dead reptile had been thrown, flashing his light there at momentary intervals.
Then another thought struck him. He now wondered whether the snake would go directly to the body, or whether it would come first to where its mate had originally been. This made Dick jump to his feet, for he had been sitting with his back to the lean-to where his chums were asleep, where he could watch everything for several feet around in the gleam of the campfire. He patrolled the camp, and then came and threw fresh wood on the fire. As the dry branches caught and burst into a bright flame, he cast one look at the spot where the dead snake had been put, then let out a yell, and throwing his rifle to his shoulder, fired after a hasty but accurate aim. He emptied the magazine before he stopped firing.