“Just this, that it all comes from our not having forced ourselves, to use Joe’s words, ‘to watch always.’”
“Great Scott! we couldn’t have sat up all night to watch those foxes!”
“One of us could. We might have taken it in turns. However, it is too late to worry about that now. But we will have to face the music when we meet Uncle Chisholm and Mr. Chillingworth. I fancy they will have something to say on the subject.”
“Ouch! The thought of that hurts me worse than my foot,” exclaimed Jack. “I don’t much care about the idea of the explanations that will be up to us to make.”
“Yet they have to be made.”
“Er-huh,” gloomily.
“I fancy that is just the usual result of neglected duty,” responded Tom. “It is part of the price you have to pay for not being on the job.”
“Goodness, are you turning into a moralizer?”
“No. I’ve just been thinking things over. Somehow this canyon——”
Above them there was a sudden sharp crackling sound, like the trampling of a thicket full of twigs. It was followed, or rather accompanied, by a yell from old Joe.