"You know I can't do that," Andy admitted mournfully; "wish I could right now; and let me tell you there'd be a heap of scatterin' out there when the circuit was closed. But what's the matter with me sneaking out and giving them a shot or two from my rifle? We didn't lug our guns all this way just for ornament, did we? And surely they couldn't be used in a nobler cause than to get us poor tired fellows decent sleep."
"How about that, Lopez?" asked Rob. "Do you think there would be any danger of the shots betraying our camp to others who might happen to be around?"
"The danger it is not much," came the reply; "and as for that, the singing of the kiote pack, it tell that a camp must be here; so there is no difference."
"That settles it, then," said Andy exultantly, as he began to unwrap himself from his blanket and grope for his rifle; "and mebbe I won't surprise a few of the noisy gents out there!"
"Don't go too far," Rob warned him, as he started to crawl away on his hands and knees, trailing his gun after him.
"I won't," Andy whispered back, turning his head and then giving a little flirt with one hand in his customary jolly way.
"No use trying to go to sleep till the circus ends, is there?" Merritt demanded, as he shuffled around, trying to get into an easier position.
"Just what I'd made up my mind to myself," replied Rob, following suit.
"Look at Tubby here, sleeping as sweetly as an overgrown baby," the corporal of the Eagle Patrol went on to say with a low laugh.
"Oh! Tubby is the best sleeper I ever knew," Rob assured him. "He often talks as if he had been wakeful all the night, but it's a false alarm. He can sleep through a pretty good thunder-storm, and then remark in the morning that he thinks it must have rained a little during the night. But wait and see if he hears the noise when Andy lets fly with his repeating rifle!"