CHAPTER V
THE SUDDEN AWAKENING
"Thought you meant to go to bed, Lub?" said Ethan, some little time afterwards, as they were all sitting around again.
"Oh! somehow I seem to have gotten over my sleepy spell," admitted the other, frankly; "perhaps it was the excitement over seeing that prowler outside that did it. I'm as wide awake as a hawk right now."
"Well, it's just the other way with me," X-Ray remarked, yawning almost as furiously as Lub had been doing before; "I'm getting dopey, and mean to turn in pretty soon. If nothing else happens to bother, nobody's going to hear a word from me after I hit the hay."
Lub looked at him painfully, but he did not think it best to ask further questions lest he stir up a hornets' nest. There was something on Lub's mind. Phil understood this from various signs. He began to get an inkling as to what its nature might prove to be, when several times he saw the other lean forward and look long and earnestly up the chimney.
"What d'ye expect to see up there, Lub?" asked Ethan, who had also it seemed been watching the other. "This isn't the time for old Santa Claus to come down with his pack of toys. His reindeer need snow for their sledge, you know."
"Will you let the fire go out when we turn in, Phil?" asked Lub, ignoring all such little annoyances as this.
"Why, I suppose so," he was told. "If it was cold weather it might be a different thing; but to-night is pretty warm, and we'll get little air in here, with the door closed. Yes, the last wood has been thrown on the fire; and to tell the truth there's only a handful more in the house, which we'll save to start things with in the morning."