There is a time when Nature takes her toll, no matter what the worldly matters may be at stake.
CHAPTER XIX The Sleep-Walker
It was well past three o'clock in the morning, though he had no means then of knowing the time, when Andy Flures turned stiffly upon his hard couch of Mother Earth, rubbed his eyes, then his sore joints, finally recollected where he was and looked about casually at the others in the group.
Though they were in a thin grove of trees, the soft light of a full moon bathed the landscape with a brightness that made everything easily visible.
Andy sat up to limber his joints the more. As he did so he wondered how the others felt.
"Pretty narrow escape all of us had today," he murmured to himself; and added, "Especially narrow for Andy."
He looked down at Fred, who was close beside him. He was snoring peacefully. He glanced over at Don, and he, too, seemed none the worse for the day's terrible work. His eye traveled on. He turned his head suddenly, and then peered all around with something of a panicky feeling coming over him.
He uttered an unconscious exclamation, and Fred moved and muttered in his sleep. Andy jumped up and walked around the grove, circling over an area of thirty or forty feet. Then he came back hurriedly to where Don and Fred lay sleeping.