"It might 'hang' you; in other words, we should be in danger of being burned, for we surely would sleep all day, once we permitted ourselves to drop off!"
"All right. Carry on! If I could have a nip of sleep I know I should dream of food, which would fix me up all right. How long are we going to let them sleep?" asked Hippy, pointing to the sleeping Overland girls.
"Until we make certain that the fire isn't going to break out afresh. We will then shake the girls up and go back to camp. It doesn't look as though I should get away to-day, does it?" grinned Tom.
"We can sit down, can't we?"
"Not yet! Not for another two hours."
The men separated and began a steady patrol of the fire-line, dragging themselves along wearily until the two hours had lengthened into three. Hippy then declared himself and announced his intention of going straight back to camp for something to eat and a sleep.
Tom, after a final look about, agreed. It took some little time to get the girls sufficiently awake to enable them to stand on their feet, but finally the men had marshalled them all and the journey to camp began.
It was blackened and cheerless acres of bare and fallen trees that their swollen eyes gazed upon on the way back to camp. Thousands of feet of virgin timber had been burned. Tom Gray, whose love of the forest was almost a passion with him, gazed on the wreckage sadly.
"Let this be a lesson to all of you. Always be careful with your campfires," he warned.
The girls were too tired to eat when they reached camp. All they desired was sleep and rest. Hippy's crying need was food, and that was what he proposed to get first, but Tom would not hear to either of them sitting down until the horses had been looked after and watered.