“’Tain’t no use, not a bit. May as well save our breath. We can’t hear those shots plain enough to tell what direction they come from, so of course nobody can hear us,” said Billy, disconsolately resuming his seat by the fire.
For a while they heard shots from time to time, and somehow they brought a certain amount of comfort. It seemed less lonely to know that others were abroad in the forest looking for them, even though they were miles away. But the shots ceased finally, and the brooding mystery of the night settled over and took possession of them. They said little, but sat absorbed each in his own thoughts or listening to the strange sounds and uncanny voices of the night.
A pathetic picture they presented had any one been there to see, huddled together on the old log, their swollen, mud-smeared faces still further distorted by the uncertain flicker of the firelight. A stick snapping off in the darkness produced an answering jump in overwrought nerves, and the sudden scurry of a rabbit brought a startled “What was that?” from Spud.
Presently the physical strain and excitement they had been under began to tell, and despite their strange surroundings both boys began to nod, while the fire died down to glowing embers. It was then that some evil genius prompted a great horned owl to take up his watch on a dead pine not fifty feet away and startle the woodland with his fierce hunting call:
“Whooo-hoo-hoo, whoo-hoo!”
The sleepers awoke in a panic, frantically clutching each other. “D-d-did you hear that?” whispered Spud, his teeth chattering.
As if in reply again the fierce hunting call rang through the woods:
“Whooo-hoo-hoo, whoo-hoo!”
Billy gave vent to a hysterical little laugh of relief. “Nothin’ but an owl,” said he as he heaped more wood on the fire. “He certainly got my goat that first time, though. Say, Spud, we’re a couple of ninnies to both be sittin’ out here asleep. What’d we build that lean-to for? You turn in there and sleep for a couple of hours and then you watch and I’ll sleep. Ain’t any need of either of us keepin’ watch so far as any danger is concerned, I s’pose, for there’s nothin’ in these woods to harm us, but we ought not to leave the fire burnin’ without some one to watch it.”
This was sound advice, and Spud stretched out on the fragrant balsam boughs in the lean-to and soon was sound asleep. Billy began his lonely vigil. At first it was easy enough to keep awake. Later an almost irresistible drowsiness took possession of him, and it was only by tramping back and forth or hunting fire-wood within the circle of light from the fire that he managed to keep awake. At the end of two hours he roused Spud, and wearily threw himself in the latter’s place on the balsam bed.