"I may as well lie down and go to sleep too," says Frank. And, very softly, so as not to awaken Mr. Sinjin, he lays himself down by his side, puts his cheek on the pillow of boughs, and keeps perfectly still.
The heart of the veteran burns within him, but he makes no sign. And now—hark! Patter, patter, patter. It is beginning to rain.
This, then, is what the dark canopy meant, hanging so luridly over the fire-lit forest. Patter, patter; faster, faster; dripping through the trees, hissing in the fire, capering like fairies on the ground, comes the midnight rain.
Sinjin thinks it about time to wake. But Frank is stirring; so he concludes to sleep a little longer, and see what he will do.
Frank takes some pine boughs, and lays them carefully over the old man, to shelter him from the rain. Hotter and hotter glows the old heart beneath; melt it must soon.
"There!" says Frank in a whisper; "don't tell him I did it!"
He is going. Old Sinjin can sleep—or pretend to sleep—no more.
"Hello! Who's there?"—awaking with amazing suddenness.—"That you, Frank? What are you here for at this time of night?"
"O, I'm a privileged character. They let me go around the camp about as I like, you know."
"How long has it been raining? And how came all this rubbish heaped over me?"