Joe snored lightly, and his pipe fell out of his mouth at this point, so the conversation dropped. Presently Dick asked, in a low tone, “I say, Henri, are ye asleep?”
“Oui,” replied Henri, faintly. “Don’t speak, or you vill vaken me.”
“Ah! Crusoe, you’re not asleep, are you, pup?” No need to ask that question. The instantaneous wag of that speaking fail, and the glance of that wakeful eye, as the dog lifted his head and laid his chin on Dick’s arm, showed that he had been listening to every word that was spoken. We cannot say whether he understood it, but beyond all doubt he heard it. Crusoe never presumed to think of going to sleep until his master was as sound as a top; then he ventured to indulge in that light species of slumber which is familiarly known as “sleeping with one eye open.” But, comparatively, as well as figuratively speaking, Crusoe slept usually with one eye and a-half open, and the other half was never very tightly shut.
Gradually Dick’s pipe fell out of his mouth, an event which the dog, with an exercise of instinct almost, if not quite, amounting to reason, regarded as a signal for him to go off. The campfire went slowly out, the stars twinkled down at their reflections in the brook, and a deep breathing of wearied men was the only sound that rose in harmony with the purling stream.
Before the sun rose next morning, and while many of the brighter stars were still struggling for existence with the approaching day, Joe was up and buckling on the saddle-bags, while he shouted to his unwilling companions to rise.
“If it depended on you,” he said, “the Pawnees wouldn’t be long afore they got our scalps. Jump, ye dogs, an’ lend a hand, will ye!”
A snore from Dick and a deep sigh from Henri was the answer to this pathetic appeal. It so happened, however, that Henri’s pipe, in falling from his lips, had emptied the ashes just under his nose, so that the sigh referred to drew a quantity thereof into his throat, and almost choked him. Nothing could have been a more effective awakener. He was up in a moment coughing vociferously. Most men have a tendency to vent ill-humour on some one, and they generally do it on one whom they deem to be worse than themselves. Henri, therefore, instead of growling at Joe for rousing him, scolded Dick for not rising.
“Ha, mauvais dog! bad chien, vill you dare to look to me?”
Crusoe did look with amiable placidity, as though to say, “Howl away, old boy, I won’t budge till Dick does.”
With a mighty effort Giant Sleep was thrown off at last, and the hunters were once more on their journey, cantering lightly over the soft turf.