Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay | Page 9

found himself being overtaken, and was still smarting under the pain of his wound. Then again, we don't know who he may be, or what friends he may have close by. No, the best thing for us to do is to go back to our camp, and try to get a little more sleep. We'll put out the fire, and one of the guides will sit up for two hours with me. Then we'll wake another couple, and in that way pass the rest of the night."
"Sounds like business at the old stand," remarked Jimmy, "Many's the time the lot of us have done that same thing. And, Ned, I'm in hopes you'll be after lettin' me sit up with you. Never a bit of sleep is there in me eyes at this minute. I'm staring like any old hoot owl in a Virginia swamp. Don't tell me to beat it if you love me the least bit. My lamps won't go shut, that's flat, and I might as well sit up with you as lie down, and just stare and stare."
"Oh! suit yourself, Jimmy," Ned told the urgent one; "though of course I'll be only too glad to have your company, if, only you'll remember to keep still. When we have to serve as guards to the camp it's a still tongue that counts for the most."
"I'll promise to be as dumb as an oyster, Ned," pleaded the other; and so it was settled that he could help to stand the first watch.
The balance of the expedition once more settled down. Jack crawled alone into the smaller tent, while Frank and Teddy occupied the other. Francois and the Indian consulted with Ned, and then the fire was wholly extinguished. Tamasjo went over to sleep in one of the canoes, for if there should be any attack on the camp it was believed that it would begin in this quarter, as the frail craft might be reckoned their weakest and most vulnerable point.
Ned Nestor had often sat out a watch, and in the midst of a wilderness, too; but somehow the conditions seemed vastly different now from anything he had ever known before. In most other cases he could listen to the various well-known voices of the night--from katydids and crickets, to frogs in the marsh, night birds seeking their prey, or it might be the small animals of the forest barking or giving tongue.
Away up here in the vast Northern solitudes a dreadful silence seemed to hang upon all Nature. Insects there were none, of a species to cause a humming sound, and save for croaking of frogs some distance away the stillness remained unbroken for a long time.
The wolf pack broke loose again, doubtless hot on the track of a fleeing caribou, perhaps the unfortunate one that had been wounded by Jimmy on the preceding day when Frank knocked over the fine animal from which their late supper had come. Ned listened to the chorus, and allowed his thoughts to roam to other and more distant scenes, where he had had exciting experiences with the hungry animals himself, calculated to cause a shudder just to remember.
The time passed slowly. Several louder bursts of wolfish tongues told when the hunting pack chanced to draw nearer the camp, but only to grow fainter again in the distance, as the chase led the animals over barrens where the caribou herd fed, and across wild cranberry bogs, such as the boys could remember seeing up in Northern New York State when camping in the Adirondacks.
When Ned reckoned that his time was up he woke Jimmy, who had long ago gone to sleep as sweetly as you please, with his head leaning against the butt of a tree. Ned told him he might just as well crawl under the tent and get the benefit of a warm blanket; and after giving that advice called Frank and Jack out.
Teddy never so much as moved when Jimmy crept in to warm up under his woolen cover, for Teddy was a very good sleeper on any and all occasions, it seemed. Since there was no especial need of more sentries than the two, with the Indian and Francois to back them, Ned did not have the heart to arouse Teddy, even though he knew very well the other would reproach him for neglecting to do so.
There was no further alarm on that night, for which doubtless all of the boys were thankful, though Jimmy later on loudly bewailed the fact that he had been given no chance to make use of his faithful gun. Jimmy was not at all bloodthirsty, though any one hearing him talk, and not knowing his humorous nature, might be inclined to think so. But after a most venomous harangue he would