It was now three o'clock. Since all of them were too much excited to even try to sleep any more, they concluded to remain on guard in a bunch. Larry received no end of joshing on account of having slept on his post; Frank even told him that it was considered so serious a matter that men had been stood up against a wall, and shot for allowing the enemy to creep into camp.
"All right," said Larry, who hung onto the gun all the while. "Let's see you do it right now. I'm the only one that's got a shooting iron, and I refuse to give it up, or use it on myself. Call it off, Frank, and we'll begin all over," and so, as Larry was a pretty decent sort of a fellow, as they go, and besides, just as he said, held possession of the only weapon, for that musket had been broken by the fall of the log, they concluded not to shoot him on the spot, but give him another chance to make good.
It was a long wait till morning; but finally the stars vanished before the gray light of early dawn. Larry, as soon as he could see decently, started to get breakfast; for he declared that if he was a mighty poor sentry he did have a few good points, one of which was his ability to sling tasty messes together.
Jules was as "mum as a church mouse," as Elephant called it. But by degrees he took more or less interest in what the boys were doing.
"Look out for him," said Larry aside to Frank. "I think he means to try and escape if he gets half a chance. That's why he smiles now and then."
"You're away off, Larry," replied Frank. "For I notice that every time that pleasant look creeps over his face it is when a smell of coffee drifts this way. Jules hasn't tasted anything like that for more than a year. And while he's got to go back to where the law has sent him, we're going to give him a decent breakfast first."
When a little later they heard the stamp of the Colonel's crutch the boys looked up expectantly, knowing they would have the laugh on the old veteran traveler, who had flown to the rescue when the alarm was all a farce, and slept through the real thing.
"What's all this? Bless me, if they haven't caught the rascal after all! Why didn't you ring me up? That alarm bell must have played me false, Andy, and I believe you juggled with it! The old cry of 'wolf' again; and I'm the victim."
Expressing his disgust in this way the Colonel stumped in, and proceeded to let the prisoner know what he thought of a man who would try to revenge himself upon a couple of bright lads; especially after bringing all his troubles down upon his own shoulders.
It afterwards developed that Jules had stolen the musket, and also the suit of clothes he was wearing, from a farmhouse that he raided shortly after his escape from the prison. Although he never confessed to the fact, Frank never had any reason to doubt but that it had been Jules who fired that shot at them while they were speeding over the Powell woods in their biplane.