The letter was lying in my hand. I had but to plunge my fingers into the open envelope, but something took me by the shoulder. "No," I answered, and thrust the envelope in my pocket.
I take no airs for that decision. There was something here that these men did not like to handle, and, in plain terms, I was afraid.
CHAPTER XIX
THE ORBIT OF THE DWARFS
We slept that night in the front room of Roy's tavern, and it seemed to me that I had just closed my eyes when I opened them again. Ump was standing by the side of the bed with a candle. The door was ajar and the night air blowing the flame, which he was screening with his hand. For a moment, with sleep thick in my eyes, I did not know who it was in the blue coat. "Wake up, Quiller," he said, "an' git into your duds."
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"There's devilment hatchin', I'm afraid," he answered. "Wait till I wake Jud."
He aroused the man from his snoring in the chimney corner, and I got into my clothes. It was about three o'clock and grey dark. I looked over the room as I pulled on the roundabout borrowed of Roy. Ump's bed had not been slept in, and there was about him the warm smell of a horse.
Jud noticed the empty bed. "Ump," he said, "you ain't been asleep at all."