Walter had gone out with the second guard, and the others had gathered around the camp-fire for their nightly story-telling.
"Now, I don't want you fellows sitting up all night," objected the foreman. "None of you will be fit for duty to-morrow. We've got a hard drive before us, and every man must be fit as a fiddle. You can enjoy yourselves sleeping just as well as sitting up."
"Humph!" grunted Curley Adams. "I'll give it as a horseback opinion that the only way to enjoy such a night as this, is to sit up until you fall asleep with your boots on. That's the way I'm going to do it, to-night."
The cowboy did this very thing, but within an hour he found himself alone, the others having turned in one by one.
"Where are your beds?" asked Stacy after the foreman had urged the boys to get to sleep.
"Beds?" grunted Big-foot. "Anywhere—everywhere. Our beds, on the plains, are wherever we happen to pull our boots off."
"You will find your stuff rolled up under the chuck wagon, boys," said Stallings. "I had Pong get out the blankets for you, seeing that you have only your slickers with you."
The lads found that a pair of blankets had been assigned to each of them, with an ordinary wagon sheet doubled for a tarpaulin. These they spread out on the ground, using boots wrapped in coats for pillows.
Stacy Brown proved the only grumbler in the lot, declaring that he could not sleep a wink on such a bed as that.
In floundering about, making up his bunk, the lad had fallen over two cowboys and stepped full on the face of a third.