“Moved and supported that we go to sleep,” Case replied. “The ayes have it! Motion prevails! You just watch now and see me flop down here in the bushes. I’m going to sleep a week!”
“All right!” Jule answered with a yawn. “When it comes to sleeping, you haven’t got anything on me.”
“And when we wake up,” Case continued, “we’ll see the Rambler riding out there in the cove, with Alex cooking the catfish a la Indian, and Clay exhibiting the eggs and milk he bought at some romantic farm house.”
“Go to sleep and dream all that!” Jule snorted.
The boys lay down on the beds of leaves which they had prepared in the undergrowth and were soon sound asleep. After all, they had nothing serious to worry over, for they both believed that a situation something like that forecast by Case would present itself when they awoke.
The sun rising over the river cast long lances of light into the thicket where they lay. The cool breeze of the morning stirred the leaves about them like a lullaby. The birds darted and sang in the sweet air. The scene was as peaceful and pastoral as one might well imagine.
But only for a time. Directly the heavy tramp of horses was heard, the rattling of rings and the champing of bits.
The riders, a score or more, advanced through the woods to the cove and halted on the east shore. There they tied their horses to trees and threw themselves upon the ground. They were sturdy men, clean-limbed, alert, with fierce eyes and determined faces.
All unconscious of the presence of the riders, the boys slept on. Presently a lean hound belonging to the company ran sniffing and snarling around to the thicket where Case and Jule lay. There he sat up such a baying as might have awakened the Seven Sleepers.
The two boys sleepily rubbed their eyes and looked about. It seemed to them at first that Captain Joe had returned, but they soon saw the difference between the lean hound and the white bulldog.