"I'd like to bring my cot down this way," Tom suggested.
"There's no law against it," Dick smiled. "The owner's permission extended in a general way to all the land right around here."
"Will you bring your cot, too?" Tom asked.
"Certainly."
So, before any of the other fellows were asleep, Dick and Tom reentered the tent to get their folding cots and bedding.
"Cooler down by the road, is it?" asked Darrin wistfully. "Then
I'm sorry you didn't find it out before I undressed."
"We'll sleep in our clothes," Dick replied. "Come along, Tom, and give the infant class a chance to get to sleep."
After lying, fully dressed on their cots, which they placed within ten feet of the road, Dick and Tom found themselves so wide awake that they lay chatting for some moments.
At last Reade mumbled his answers; next his unmistakably deep breathing indicated that he was asleep. Prescott thereupon turned over on his side and dozed off.
It was shortly after their first few moments of sleep had passed that a noise in the road close by awoke both boys.