"I've got another idea," shouted Stacy.
"Keep it to yourself," growled Ned. "Your ideas, like your jokes, graduated a long time ago."
"Is there sleepy grass in the Catskill Mountains!" persisted Stacy.
"We don't know, and we don't—"
"I know there is, and that's what put Rip Van Winkle to sleep for twenty years," shouted the fat boy in high glee. "See, I know more than—"
"Yes; you're the original boy wonder. We'll take that for granted," nodded Ned Rector.
Tad, however, was not inclined to look upon their enforced delay with anything like amusement. To him it had its serious side. He had not forgotten that they had been fleeing from the Indians. When he got an opportunity to do so, without his companions overhearing, he approached the Professor.
"I think it would be a good plan for us to have a guard over our camp to-night."
"On account of?"
"Yes."