Finally, Dick discovered that it was no longer pitch dark outside. The moon had broken out from the scattering storm clouds, and was giving a fair amount of light.
Dick, always in touch with the positions of the heavenly bodies, knew, after he had located the fragment of a moon, that morning was indeed close at hand. Indeed, he believed that in less than half an hour the dawn would break.
He allowed Roger to sleep until it was broad daylight, and then, acting under the belief that they had better be on their way, he laid a hand on the other’s arm.
“Morning has come, and we ought to be getting out of here,” Dick told his comrade, as he felt the other move under his touch.
“Why, I did go to sleep after all, it seems,” muttered Roger, as though he considered this the queerest thing of all; but Dick only smiled, for he knew of old some of the little weaknesses of his chum.
They succeeded in pushing the old stump away from the opening, leaving a gap big enough for them to crawl through.
“If Mr. Bear ever takes the trouble to come back to his den,” remarked Roger, as he surveyed the big tree with its hollow butt, “he’s welcome to his old quarters. I’d like to tell him that his hole is all right, too, when a fellow is caught in a storm; but we have other fish to fry just now.”
His words reminded him of the fine mess of trout they had caught on the preceding day, just before the trap set by the cunning Indians had been sprung, and shortly afterwards he remarked:
“I do hope our friends found all the strings of trout we left along the bank of that stream; and that there were more than they could use at one time. It would be fine if we got a taste of the same, Dick, after all this fuss.”
“I was just thinking,” remarked practical Dick, who certainly was not bothering his head about trout, or any other kind of food, “that, after all, that storm may have done us one kindness.”