'No,' he muttered, 'it can't be. This is Blackfoot territory if anything; and, besides, them Crows could never have got here by this time. If it's Blackfeet, they'll not hurt old Dick Wharton.'
'Who will take the first watch?' asked Wharton two hours later, when the last grouse-bone had been cleaned, and the old 'Cradle' hobbled for the night. 'Perhaps I had better; I smoke and you lads don't; and, besides, your young eyes are heavier than mine, I reckon,' he added good-naturedly.
The boys made no objection. Towzer, for one, never heard, having gone to sleep some minutes before with a grouse-bone in one hand and a chunk of slap-jack in the other.
'Let the young 'un sleep until he wakes,' said Wharton; 'put him to watch for an hour about midnight, and then one of you take the morning watch, and let him sleep. He's very nearly played out, and he's a game little chap,' said the grey old cowboy kindly.
It was midnight before any one of the boys opened his eyes again, to find old Wharton still watching and still smoking. Towzer had got up, wakened by the chill night-air, to re-arrange his blanket.
'Let me take a turn now, Dick,' he said; 'I've had my beauty sleep and feel as fit as a flea.'
'All right, I'll help you make up the fire,' said Dick, 'and when you have watched for a couple of hours, wake your brother. Let Snap sleep right away until dawn, if he will. He has done more than we have—stalking deer, and so on.'
In ten seconds Wharton was asleep. His tough old form seemed to settle down as easily on to the turf as if it had been a feather-bed. If there were roots or stones about, they didn't seem to incommode him in the least. 'I guess I hurt the roots' is what he once said, when Frank pointed out to him a peculiarly knotty point on which he had been sleeping.
Towzer thought he had never known a night so still. He could hear 'the Cradle' cropping the grass quite plainly.
'What an appetite you have got for a late supper!' thought he as he turned and saw the old pony hopping about in his hobbles.