"Hush!—don't!" Hubert whispered urgently. "Don't tell him he was free to enlist and try to put him in a hole. He's our friend."
Ted saw the force of this in time and shut off his coming flood words, saying only:
"I didn't think you were afraid, Mr. Hardy. And it is very good of you to be willing for me to speak out, and I thank you very much."
Then the "cock of the walk" himself seemed to think that it would be better to change the subject, for he began to speak about an interesting incident of the day's hunting. But the conversation soon dragged, the slackers yawning drowsily. One by one they rose and disappeared, until only Buck, Sweet and the two boys were left by the fire. Finally Sweet rose, saying:
"What you aim to do with them boys to-night, Buck? We got to keep our eye on them boys."
"They'll sleep with me," was the answer.
Shortly afterward Buck Hardy lighted a torch and bade the boys follow him. He led them beneath the curious log house standing so high in the air—a precaution against snakes in summer—and climbed by a ladder through a square opening in the floor. Passing the sleeping men, whose faces even in the case of the least pleasing seemed softened in slumber, Hardy led the way to the extreme end of the room. Giving the torch to Ted, he scattered and broadened his really comfortable bed of leaves and Spanish moss so as to make room for the two boys between himself and the wall. There appeared to be no window in all the structure, but apparently sufficient air entered between the logs of the walls and through the wide door in the floor.
After the light was put out Ted recalled Sweet Jackson's "We got to keep our eye on them boys," with its suggestion of possible captivity at least for a time; but both he and Hubert were too tired to speculate or worry about their situation, and they soon forgot everything in sound sleep.