The others followed, weariedly but willingly. Camp and supper were pleasing thoughts; and the event proved that about the former, at least, the Shark was right. In a moment or two the canvas of the tent showed like a pale blur on the dark background. The rest quickened their steps; but Sam, pausing, looked back.
After all, the fire had started uncomfortably close to the camp. It was borne in upon him that it was a singularly fortunate circumstance for the club that what little breeze there had been had blown in the opposite direction. If some mischief maker had been at work——
Sam’s expression was grave, as he turned and resumed his way. With all his desire to be fair in his judgments, an ugly suspicion was obtruding itself upon him.
CHAPTER XIX
A DREAM AND AN AWAKENING
Tired as he was, Sam was sleeping badly. He was dreaming, and the dream was peculiarly annoying; for it was very like a repetition of the day’s events, enacted over and over again. He was tramping through woods which seemed to have no end; then he was fighting brush fires, which broke out anew as fast as he could extinguish them; then he was coming back to the camp, and supper was to be made ready, and a squabble between Poke and Step over possession of the coffee-pot was to be settled half a dozen times; then when his weary mates had stretched themselves out and were already dozing, something impelled him to leave the tent and revisit the scene of the fire. Sam, tossing and turning, had visions of that trip repeated a score of times. Back and forth he seemed to be trudging. There was moonlight. In it the tent had a ghostlike effect, while the burned-over tract was a weird scene of desolation. There was nothing to indicate danger of the fire reviving, and this was comforting; but the dream, presently, began to include strange and ominous sounds like the beat of great wings, suggesting dragons and other marvelous creations of unchecked fancy. In his waking hours he was not an imaginative chap, but, once his eyes were closed, he could see as wonderful sights as even Poke, who rather specialized in nightmares, could conjure up. Yes, and he could hear sounds quite as strange as Poke ever attempted to describe to a skeptical audience. He was hearing them now; the beat of the wings was almost directly over his head.
Sam sat up with a start. He dug his knuckles into his eyes. He peered about him. There was a wavering patch of faint light—that would be the play of moonbeams before the tent, he told himself. There were shadowy forms about him, where the other members of the club lay asleep. Two or three of them were breathing heavily; snoring, in fact, like good fellows; but he realized that other sounds had awakened him. Then came explanation. The flaps of the tent had been insecurely fastened, and were fluttering in a strong, if fitful, breeze.
Sam crawled out from his blankets. He picked his cautious way to the door of the tent, stumbling over somebody’s shoes, but recovering balance and escaping a fall. He looked out. There were scurrying clouds overhead, fleecy clouds which did not completely hide the moon; the branches of the trees were swaying in a sharp gust. Half sheltered as he was by the canvas, he felt the force of the wind.
“Lucky it wasn’t blowing this way in the afternoon,” he reflected. “It would have been a bad job, if——”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He had not shaken off the influence of the dream, and there was, besides, the ugly doubt concerning the accidental cause of the fire. A moment he stood there, trying to set his wits in order, as he himself would have phrased it. Then, of a sudden, he was as thoroughly awake and alert as fresh alarm could make him.
A thin, grayish vapor was filling the space before the tent. His nostrils caught the pungent odor of wood smoke.