“Eh? What d’ye mean by saying that?” asked Billie.
“Why, the fellow who fired may have meant to send in a random bullet, just to help scare us; but by mistake, perhaps it went the wrong way, and wounded one of his friends,” Adrian concluded; though from his manner it was apparent he himself had very little faith in this rather far-fetched theory.
Donald laughed.
“Oh! no, that don’t go down worth a cent, Adrian,” he went on to declare. “Why, I tell you there couldn’t have been one chance of it in ten thousand. Whoever it was fired that shot, he was quick as a flash on the trigger; and he had a good eye in the bargain. Not many men could have nailed that Injun in the moonlight, and when he just exposed himself a little bit, while crawling along from rock to rock.”
They decided that it was useless thinking of sleeping after such an experience. So they sat there in the shadows as time passed on, now and then exchanging low remarks, but always keeping the horses under observation; and their fingers were in close contact with the triggers of their quick-firing guns, so as to be ready for any sort of emergency that might arise.
But that only applied to two of the boys. For poor Billie, in spite of all his good intentions, could not keep awake to save his life; and during the balance of the night he enjoyed quite a number of lengthy naps all to himself. But between these he let the others know that he was awake by asking numerous questions; and secretly he hoped that neither of them noticed his regular breathing whenever he fell into a doze.
There are lots of just such fellows in this queer world of ours, filled with good intentions, but singularly weak when it comes to trying to put them into
practice. Billie always meant well, and did the best he knew how. With him it was indeed a case of the “spirit being willing, but the flesh weak.”
There was no further alarm that night.
Why this should be so they could only hazard one of several guesses. The young adventure-loving bucks may have realized that they were up against a snag after having one of their number wounded in that strange way; and concluded that the possible reward was hardly worth the risk of their lives. Then again, since the shot came from a quarter behind them, they may have been seized with a sudden panic, to the effect that they were literally surrounded, and concluded that they had better make off while a chance remained.