Ned's reasoning—and especially his intimation of a plan to escape—put the boys in a more cheerful mood. They were all thoroughly exhausted for want of sleep, but that was of little consequence compared with the pangs of hunger and thirst they were enduring. They had eaten nothing since the previous evening, nor had a drop of water touched their lips. And it was now past noon.
It was aggravating, nay, maddening, to know that their store of provisions was so close. Well they realized the futility of appealing to their merciless captor.
He had said they should have no food, and they knew he meant it. No doubt he would deny them water also, and they did not venture to ask it.
They could see the fellow plainly. He was sprawled in a lazy attitude on the sawdust, pulling at his foul black pipe. Occasionally he took a flat, greenish bottle from his pocket and tasted the contents with a satisfactory smack of the lips. The fumes of bad tobacco and whisky began to permeate the closet.
So the long afternoon wore on. Moxley seemed quite unconcerned about his prisoners. He was well content to lie on the soft sawdust with his bottle and his pipe, secure from the pelting rain that was falling outside.
Ned kept a close watch upon him, noting with satisfaction that he had frequent recourse to the bottle. His potations would likely induce sleep.
It seemed to the impatient boys that night would never come, but at last the gray light faded from the crevice, and the dusk of evening deepened the shadows in the old mill.
Before it was fairly dark Moxley lighted one of the lanterns that he had brought from the canoes and put it on a log. It was a bullseye, and he so trained it that the yellow glare shone on the sawdust heap.
Perhaps he fancied it an excellent substitute for sunlight, which all tramps love so dearly. At all events he basked in it while he smoked a couple of pipes, and then, after several ineffectual efforts to sit straight, he rolled over on his back.
A moment later heavy snores came from his parted lips. He was undoubtedly asleep.