He did not allow himself to fall asleep. To do so would have been neglecting his duty as a scout; but he might at least keep himself bodily comfortable, and he knew that even if he should sink into slumber no enemy would approach the gate of the stockade without arousing him.
He was still in the same position half-an-hour afterwards, betraying by no sign that he was aware that he was not alone.
A shadow moved across his closed eyes, he heard a very cautious footstep quite near to him, but he did not stir.
He remained silent and motionless for many minutes, until he became conscious of a warm breath in his face and of a hand stealing behind him towards his rifle. But before the fingers closed upon the weapon, Dan had swiftly seized the intruding arm.
"No, you don't!" he objected, with a laugh, and he looked up into the moonlit face of a man in the familiar uniform of the North-West Mounted Police, who was sitting on the end of a pine log only a few inches away from him. "Guess you figured I was asleep, did you, Sergeant?" he said, rubbing his eyes.
"Looked some like it," returned the sergeant. "You showed no sign of being awake, and you never challenged me as you ought to have done. Say, it might have been an Indian sneaking up."
"I sure knew that it wasn't," affirmed Dan. "An Injun doesn't wear top boots and clinkin' spurs, nor a Stetson hat, nor a scarlet tunic. And he wouldn't have made a bee-line across that patch of moonlit grass, as you did just now. I knew it was you all the time. If I hadn't known it, you might have had a bullet in you. A nice thing it would have been if I'd had to go to the fort and report that I'd shot Sergeant Silk in mistake for a Redskin. I should have been some sorry."
"Dare say," reflected Silk, speaking hardly above a whisper. "Folks generally are some sorry after they've taken a human life. I never knew but one man who was real glad."
"Glad?" echoed Dan.