This current of air brought the odor of cooking to their nostrils, and Billie was heard to give several vigorous sniffs that called for a warning kick on the part of Donald, just ahead of the fat boy; whereupon Billie subsided, shaking his head as though he thought it pretty hard lines when a fellow had to lie there, taking in all that delicious fragrance, and not getting even a single bite of the fare.
When it was seen that the other three rustlers were passing a suspicious black bottle around, and taking frequent potations, the boys began to have strong hopes that things might be made easy for
them after all; because they knew that when alcohol once gets a firm grip on a man’s brain he is hardly apt to bother himself about what is taking place around him until the effect of his potations wears away.
If only those three men would be so accommodating as to stupefy themselves in quick order, while thus celebrating their successful raid, Donald thought they surely could manage to get the upper hand of the remaining fellow. By that time perhaps he might have eaten so much cooked meat as to be drowsy, and fall a victim almost as easily as the other three.
The minutes passed, and nothing occurred by that fire unnoticed by the sharp eyes of the trio of hidden lads. Billie was forever poking up his head to look, and then quickly drawing it down again in sudden alarm because he fancied he saw one of the rustlers staring in his direction. But of course that was pure imagination, because they lay far away and among the shadows of the trees, so that even the keenest vision possible was not apt to discover their hiding-place.
After half an hour of this sort of thing Billie felt like hugging himself, for he saw the three fellows who had been drinking so heavily giving positive signs of wanting to roll over and go to sleep. Billie would have liked ever so much to communicate his feeling of satisfaction to one of his companions,
because it was always a punishment for him to be kept from talking in some fashion; but whenever he gave the least sign of wanting to whisper Donald would give him a cruel kick, and in this way warn him that silence was golden just then. So the poor fellow had to take it out in telling himself what he thought, and how he hoped now they could soon be making a move looking to the capture of the rustler gang.
Two of the punchers seemed to have succumbed. They lay there just as they had fallen over, and were oblivious to all that was going on.
The third man, who seemed to be something of a leader among them, probably realizing that his own condition was not all that it should be, was shaking his finger in front of the face of the fellow who was still eating, as though giving him to understand that the safety of the camp was going to depend on him.
Billie hoped that he too would lie down and go to sleep. Unless a move took place very soon now he feared that it would be too late for him to get even a bite of that cooked meat which had been tantalizing him for some time; because there did not seem to be any end to that horrible glutton’s appetite; and there was only one more piece left right then.