"It is to you I am speaking, Master Stacy. You must not tantalize Billy. Let him alone. Have I your promise that you will do so?"
"If I promise I have to, don't I?" questioned the fat boy.
"Certainly you do."
"Then I guess I won't promise," he replied after a brief reflection.
The Professor gave it up with a shrug of his shoulders. He asked the guide if they should tie him up for the night or if he would lie down and behave himself. Billy decided that he would prefer the latter, so they left it that way. Chops was then permitted to return to his duties, getting the camp to rights for the night, but it was observed that he gave a nervous little jump every time he heard an unusual sound.
"I'll bet he sees more than a black cat in his sleep tonight," Tad confided to Rector.
"I don't care what he sees so long as he doesn't snore. And I give you due notice that if Chunky persists in snoring as he has been doing lately either he or I will have to sleep out in the bushes out of sound of the camp. Why, Tad, I am on the verge of nervous prostration from loss of sleep," declared Ned.
"You surely look it, too," replied Tad with a grin.
"If Stacy chases Chops out of camp again I am quite positive that it will be Stacy Brown who will sleep in the bushes," resumed Ned in a tone of voice loud enough for Stacy to hear.
"Not so that anyone will notice it, he won't," called back the fat boy.