“Yes and then when I come to look for you you’ll be gone.”
“Well, I reckon I’ve got a pair of lungs, and judging from past experience, I’m safer awake than asleep.”
“There may be something in that,” Bob agreed slowly as though he had something on his mind. “All right, you take the first watch and call me at twelve, or sooner if you get sleepy.”
“Wouldn’t wonder if we had rain before morning,” Jack declared a few minutes later as he glanced up at the sky which had become overcast.
“Looks like it. If it does rain before twelve you’d better crawl in and let the old cabin disappear by its lonesome.”
It was nearly eight o’clock when Jack, having located a position where he could command a fair view of the cabin without danger of being seen, settled down to his long vigil. Soon it was so dark in the forest that he could see little more than the outline of the cabin and by the time an hour had passed even that had faded. Then soon after it began to rain, gently at first and then harder until it had settled to a steady downpour.
“Guess I might as well give it up,” he thought. “I can’t see a thing and it’s a cinch that if there’s anyone in that cabin they’ll stay there and not be prowling about the woods.”
He had seen no light in the cabin but he knew that that was no indication that there was no one there. Men go to bed early in the big woods unless they have business to keep them up and it would be nothing unusual for them to go before it was dark enough for a light. It took considerable groping about before he was able to locate the place where Bob was sleeping. He had a flashlight with him but did not dare use it for fear that the light might be seen by some one in the cabin.
“We’re taking no chances this time,” he muttered as he searched.
He was pretty wet by the time he had located the clump of bushes, but fortunately the night was warm and he did not mind it. Bob was curled up beneath a thin rubber blanket which was large enough to cover them both, and in another minute he was sharing it with him without having disturbed him.