"I ain't a-going to jine in the rumpus the sheriff kicks up after them fellers to-morrow. It's mighty comical to me how easy some people can talk to you about putting yourself in the way of getting a charge of bird-shot sent into you, while they keep outen range themselves. I ain't got no call to resk my life a finding of Bob Emerson, and I shan't do it to please nobody."
Dan was secretly delighted to see his father work himself into a rage over the supposition that somebody would be pleased to see him go in the way of danger.
"If he will only stick to that, I'm all right," said he, to himself. "Pap sleeps sounder'n a dozen men oughter, and if Joe don't call him in the morning, you can bet your bottom dollar I won't."
Knowing his failing in this particular, Silas made the mental resolution that he would not go to sleep at all. The young game-warden, who was one of those lucky fellows who can wake at any hour they please, could be relied on to make an early start, and Silas told himself that he would lie perfectly still and wide awake until breakfast was ready, when he would jump up, eat his full share of the bacon and potatoes, and set out for the mountain when Joe did.
But even while he was thinking about it, he went off into a deep slumber. He did not awake when Joe got up, and neither did the rattling of the dishes nor the savory odors of the bacon and coffee arouse him to a consciousness of what was going on in the cabin.
Having heard him say that he did not intend to join the sheriff's posse, Mrs. Morgan and Joe did not think it worth while to disturb him, and Dan would not do anything to interfere with his own plans, which thus far were working as smoothly as he could have desired.
"But I've got a sneaking idee that there'll be trouble in this here house when pap does wake up, and finds me and Joe gone," thought Dan. "No matter. I won't be here to listen to his r'aring and pitching, so he can go on all he wants to. And if me and Joe should catch one of them robbers—whoop-pee! Then I'll have the reward all to myself; 'cause I ain't a going to put myself in the way of getting shot at, and then go snucks with a feller that's got more'n three thousand dollars a'ready. I'll see him furder first."
The hours dragged along all too slowly for the tired, patient woman who sat in the open door with her sewing in her lap, and her tear-dimmed eyes fastened upon the hills among which the only member of the family who cared for her, or who tried in any way to smooth her pathway and make her burdens easier to bear, might at that very moment be rushing to his destruction. She wished he might have stayed at home and let some one else go in his place; but Joe was loyal to his friend, and Mrs. Morgan had not tried to turn him from his purpose. She wished, too, that the weary day was over, so that the young game-warden could come back and say something comforting to her.
Just then somebody did say something, but the voice belonged to one who was not often guilty of saying or doing anything to comfort her.
"Na-r-r-r!" came from a distant corner of the cabin, and Silas Morgan threw off the blankets and started up in bed, to find that it was broad daylight, that breakfast had been cooked and eaten, and that the boy he had hoped to outwit was gone. He saw it all at a glance, but he wanted an explanation.