“Oh, well, I only threw it out as a hint,” sighed Dig. “Nothing I say goes.”
“Not even your maverick, eh?” chuckled Chet.
They cleared up after supper and then Chet advised Dig to get into his blanket and get two hours’ sleep.
“Don’t believe that wolf will be down here,” Dig mumbled. “No need to keep wa-wa-watch—Waugh!” and he stretched his jaws in a mighty gape.
“All right,” returned Chet. “You’re welcome to your belief. But I’ll keep first watch, and if I hear nothing alarming, I won’t wake you up.”
He was satisfied at first to go to the horses and see that they were picketed all right. He did not want either of them to get entangled in the rope and so get a burn. For that might lame them, and a lame horse on the trail is no happy chance.
The howling of the wolf up in the hill made the horses restless; but the maverick finally got tired and lay down again, Chet returned to the fire. His chum was already breathing heavily. The activities of the day had tired him out. Dig wasn’t exactly “soft,” but he was not innured to an out-of-door life as Chet was. Besides, he had several pounds of superfluous flesh to carry around.
His sleep was healthful, however; in the flickering firelight his bronzed face was calm.
“Good old scout!” thought Chet, watching him. “And heaps of fun! But he’s as obstinate as a toad—one of those whom he says were chased out of Ireland! I don’t know what I’d do without Dig.”
The evening had shut down now, damp and still. Frogs complained somewhere along the edge of the narrow stream. Sleepy birds croaked now and then. Night insects sang.