"You fellows can bunk in with us, under the tarps. We can make room."
But no! They just laughed. "Gwan," they said. "We're used to traveling light. We just roll up in a blanket wherever we happen to be. We aren't tenderfeet."
Well, we weren't, either. But we tried to be comfortable. When you are uncomfortable and sleep cold or crampy, that takes strength fighting it; and we were on the march to get that message through. So we crawled into bed, out of the wind and where the spruce branches partly sheltered us, and our tarps kept the dampness out and the wind, too. The two fellows opened their blankets (they had one apiece!) by the fire and lay down and rolled up like logs and seemed to think that they were the smarter. We let them, if they liked it so.
The wind moaned through the trees; all about us the timber was dark and lonesome. Only Apache and Sally, the burros, once in a while grunted as they stood as far inside the circle as they could get; but snuggled in our bed, low down, our heads on our coats, we were as warm as toast.
During the night I woke up, to turn over. Now and then a drop of rain hit the tarp tent. The fire was going again, and I could hear the two fellows talking. They were sitting up, feeding it, and huddled Injun fashion with their blankets over their shoulders, smoking their old pipes, and thinking (I guessed) that they were doing something big, being uncomfortable. But it takes more than such foolishness—wearing a big six-shooter when there is nothing to shoot, and sleeping out in the rain when cover is handy—to make a veteran. Veterans and real Scouts act sensibly. (Note 28.)
When next I woke and stretched, the sun was shining and it was time to get up.