Six minutes after crawling under the canvas Billie’s regular breathing convinced Adrian that the fat boy was entirely oblivious to all his surroundings;
and that whatever his mental troubles might be, they had for the time being vanished like the mist before the rising sun; for slumber deadens one to the cares of this world, better than anything else that is known.
Adrian himself also went to sleep, but it was in an entirely different way. He simply resolutely put all thoughts out of his mind, and in this way coaxed his senses to allow themselves to be lulled to rest. Habit can do much along these lines.
He may have been sleeping ten minutes, or perhaps it was a couple of hours; for Adrian could not even give a guess as to the truth when he was suddenly awakened by a shot outside.
Like a flash he was up on his hands and knees. Snatching his rifle from the ground he hastily crawled out of the tent; leaving Billie asking a dozen excited questions, as he too felt for his rifle, and started to follow in the wake of the more energetic chum.
When Adrian managed to gain his feet, he looked quickly around him, wondering how he could locate Donald; and if that had been the other’s gun he heard.
“This way, Ad!” called a voice just then, and he caught sight of the other waving an arm toward him from a place near by.
So Adrian started toward that quarter; and Billie, coming rolling out from the exit of the tent
just then, saw him going, so of course he hastened to “paddle” along after him—that was an expression often used to describe the fat boy’s method of locomotion; and somehow it just seemed to hit the mark; since he had a peculiar sidling motion when making an advance, that reminded one of the fins of a big fish moving back and forth.
“What happened, Donald?” asked the other, as he came close up to his chum, whom he found crouched there, gun in hand, and evidently keenly on the watch for some object at which to fire.