He wriggled, too, to sit up.
"The man's gone. He isn't there. He's gone with the message!"
The general exclaimed, and worked to jerk loose from Bill; and Fitz's head bobbed up. There wasn't any more sleep for that camp, now.
"Oh, shut up!" growled Bill.
"You fellows turn us loose," we ordered. "We've got to go. We've got to follow that man."
But they wouldn't, of course. They just laughed, and said: "No, you don't want to go. You've given us your parole; see?" and they pulled us down into the quilts again, and yawned and would sleep some more, until they found it was no use, and first one and then another kicked off the covers and sat up, too.
The sun was high and all the birds and bees and squirrels were busy for the day. At least two hours had been wasted, already.
Half of the fellows didn't wash at all, and all we Scouts were allowed to do was to wash our faces, with a lick and a promise, at the creek, under guard. We missed our morning cold wet rub. The camp hadn't been policed, and seemed dirtier than ever. Tin cans were scattered about, and pieces of bacon and of other stuff, and there was nothing sanitary or regular. Our flags were dusty and wrinkled; and that hurt. The only thing homelike was Apache and Sally, our burros, grazing on weeds and grass near the camp. But they didn't notice us particularly.
We didn't have anything more to say. The fellows began to smoke cigarettes and pipes as soon as they were up, and made the fire and cooked some bacon and fried some potatoes, and we all ate, with the flies buzzing around. A dirty camp attracts flies, and the flies stepped in all sorts of stuff and then stepped in our food and on us, too. Whew! Ugh!