"I'm all right," he declared. "Good for the night. You can pull out any time you want to."
"Dere's plenty tam." 'Poleon lit his pipe and reached again for the tea-bucket.
"Better go before you stiffen up."
"I go bimeby—sooner I get li'l drinkin' done."
"They'll fight," Rock announced, after a silence of perhaps five minutes. "I feel pretty rotten, playing out like this."
"You done firs' rate," the woodsman told him. "If I come alone I catch 'em ten mile below, but—li'l tam, more less, don' mak' no differ."
"I believe you WOULD have got 'em," the officer acknowledged. After a time he persisted: "They'll put up a battle, Doret. You'll need to be careful."
'Poleon was squatted Indian fashion over the blaze; he was staring fixedly into the flames, and an aboriginal reticence had settled upon him. After a long time he answered: "Mebbe so I keel de beeg feller. I dunno. So long one is lef' I mak' him clear dat boy Phillips."
"Decent of you to take a chance like that for Pierce," Rock resumed. "It's different with me; I have to do it. Just the same, I wouldn't care to follow those fellows over the Boundary. I don't think you'd better try it."
In spite of his suffering, the lieutenant fell into a doze; whether he slept ten minutes or an hour he never knew, but he awoke, groaning, to find the big woodsman still bulked over the campfire, still smoking, still sipping tea. Rock ate and drank some more; again he slept. For a second time his pain roused him, and once more he marveled to discover 'Poleon occupied as before. It seemed to him that the fellow would never satisfy himself. Eventually, however, the latter arose and made preparations to leave.