“This is a pretty fix. We can’t even guess how much time we have left to get out of here and over to Nantucket.”
It was not long after that a gentle sound attracted Halstead’s notice to his friend. Sleepless and worn out, Dawson had fallen into slumber.
“That’ll be all right,” thought Tom, “if only he doesn’t snore. If he does, I’ll have to hold his nose and pull him out of it.”
As for Ted, the idea of making a snoring sound didn’t seem to have occurred to him, or he would have tried it. Tom moved closer to the little fellow, that he might be at hand to prevent any such attempt to send warning outside their cramped retreat.
Whizz-zz! It was an automobile going by at high speed. It passed and was gone, almost at once, but the sound gave Tom a good idea how close they lay to the road. Yet it was surely a lonely road, little traveled, for time went dragging by without any other sound of travel.
“I’d feel starving if I weren’t so fearfully anxious,” thought Tom. “Joe is lucky that he can sleep. He’ll forget how awfully hungry he is. As for poor Ted, his mixture of feelings must be something wonderful!”
In time, Halstead found himself fighting drowsiness. The very thought that he might fall asleep so filled him with fright that he became alertly awake. Slumber and a snore or two might be enough to break their last slim chance of winning out for the Dunstans.
CHAPTER XXI—THE LAST DASH TO WIN
“What time is it, anyway?” breathed Joe.
That youth had awakened at last. He and Tom were discussing in whispers what it was best to do. While they were still deliberating, a scraping as though of a knife in a pipe-bowl, not a hundred yards away, had told them that watchers were still about. That had brought out Joe’s question.