CHAPTER V.

BUMPUS ON GUARD.

“How will we pair off for the tents?” asked Bob White, presently.

“I think it would be just as well to keep the formation we already have in the boats,” the scoutmaster immediately replied, as though he might have already figured this out.

Davy Jones was heard to give a disappointed grunt, though just why he should be the only one to do so must remain a mystery; but at any rate Bumpus refused to let himself show that he took it as personally directed toward him.

“That means Giraffe, Bob White and Smithy sleep in Number Two along with me, does it, Mr. Scout-master?” Allan inquired.

“Yes, and let Smithy pair off with you, while Bob White and Giraffe are pards on guard. I’ll take the first stage, with Bumpus, because that’ll let him have a longer uninterrupted sleep, and he’s more apt to stay awake in the earlier part of the night than later on. When the time is up we’ll arouse Giraffe, who’ll take charge of his watch. That’s understood, is it?”

All of them declared it was very simple; and that surely a spell of less than two hours could not turn out to be a very hard task. Even Bumpus was apparently grimly resolved to show his mates that he had “reformed,” and would never, never again be guilty of such a crime as going to sleep while playing the part of sentry.

“You’ve got me so worked up atalking all about that black escaped jail bird,” he stoutly affirmed, “that chances are my eyes won’t go shut the whole night long. You see, I’m sensitive by nature, and when I hear dreadful things, like that poor fellow nearly starving while he’s hiding out in the swamp, with the dogs trying to get on his trail all the time, it makes my flesh creep. So please, Giraffe, don’t say anything more about it. You get on my nerves.”

“Huh! that ain’t a circumstance to some things—” began the tall scout; and then as though suddenly thinking better of it, he cut his sentence off short, so that no one ever knew what he had meant to say, though there was Davy chuckling again, just as if he might have a strong suspicion.

They had soon arranged their blankets in the two dun-colored tents. The canvas had been prepared by tanning in some manner, so that its former white hue was altered; and at the same time it had been rendered impregnable to water. This is a fine thing about these prepared tents; because the ordinary covering, while it is capable of shedding rain for some time, once it gets soaked, if you simply touch it on the inside with your finger, you are apt to start a dripping that nothing can stop as long as the rain comes down.

Giraffe, who was very angular, and always complained of feeling every little pebble or root under his blanket, when out camping, at once started to gather some of the hanging Spanish moss, to “pad his bed with.”

“They tell me it makes fine mattresses, after it’s dried,” he remarked; “so p’raps it’ll keep me from wearing a hole in my skin while I rest here. Say, it’s simply great, let me tell you,” he added, as he sank down to test his puffy couch, “so I’d advise every one of you to get busy, and lay in a supply.”

“How about insects of all kinds, from red bugs to ticks?” asked Step Hen, who already had a few fiery spots on his lower limbs, marking the places where some of the former invisible guests had buried themselves, and started to create an intolerable itching and burning that made him scratch frequently, without much alleviation of the trouble.

“Oh! who cares about such small pests as them?” remarked Giraffe, loftily.

“Not much danger, if you select clean moss, Step Hen,” Thad told him; and as the scout-master was himself following the example set by the inventive Giraffe, of course all the others copied after him.

“Misery likes company, they say,” Step Hen was heard to mutter; “and p’raps now to-morrow there’ll be the greatest old scratching bee you ever did see. As I’m in for it anyway, guess I’ll take the chances of mixin’ the breed,” with which he flung prudence to the winds, and started making a collection for himself.

Now, Thad did not mean to neglect any precaution looking to making sure that if a visitor came to the camp during the night, in the shape of a human black thief, he would find it difficult to carry off any of their possessions.

First of all, he paid particular attention to the boats, the paddles of which he himself carried into the middle of the camp, and finally hid away in the tents, so that they could not easily be run across.

Then he had some of the boys assist him, while he ran the two canoes far up on the shore. Even then he secured the painters in such fashion that any one would have great difficulty in unfastening the same.

“I should think that would make us feel secure about our boats, Thad?” Allan remarked, after all this had been carried out with scrupulous care; for the scout-master believed that what was worth doing at all was worth doing well, and he applied this principle to his every-day life, often to his great advantage.

“If we know what’s good for us we want to always guard the boats above all things,” Thad went on to tell them.

“I should say so,” Bumpus admitted; “just think what a nice pickle we’d find ourselves in, fellows, if we suddenly lost both boats while we were right in the middle of the swamp. We could lose lots of things better than them.”

“Bumpus,” observed Giraffe, solemnly, “you never said truer words—we could; and there might even be some things we’d be _glad_ to part with, but which seem to hang on to us just everlastingly.”

Davy seemed amused at hearing the tall scout say this; but Bumpus either mistook it for a compliment, or else chose to act as if he did; for he grinned, and nodded, and wandered back to the tents to get his gun; for Thad had selected the first watch for himself and his partner.

“I’ll just show ’em that I can stay awake these days,” he was saying to himself in his positive way. “Time may have been when I was just a little mite weak that way; but I’ve reformed, so I have. Huh! what’s two hours to me, I’d like to know?”

Some of the other scouts might, had they chosen, have recalled numerous instances where Bumpus, being set on guard, had later on been found “dead to the world,” committing the most heinous crime known to soldiers in war-time, that of sleeping on post, and thus putting the whole army in peril.

When one fellow started to crawl inside the tent others followed his example, until only Thad and Bumpus remained. The fat scout had to take a firm grip on himself, when he saw them going to their inviting blankets, buoyed up so temptingly by those armfuls of soft gray moss; but he proved equal to the test, for he shouldered his gun, and bade Thad station him in his place.

“You’ll have to stay right here, Bumpus,” the other told him. “I know it isn’t the most inviting spot going, for the ground is wet, and you can hardly find a place to stand on; but those things are good for a sentry, because they help keep him awake.”

“Oh! never mind about me, Thad; I’ll prove true blue every time. But where will you hold forth? I ought to know, so I could find you, in case anything suspicious came along.”

So Thad pointed out where he expected to stay, and then went on to warn the other once more:

“Be very careful about using your gun, Bumpus,” he said.

“Oh! I will, sure, Thad,” declared the fat scout, hastily. “I hope now you don’t think I want to have any poor fellow’s blood on my hands, do you? I ain’t half so ferocious as Giraffe, now. You heard what he said about thinking the coon’d get what he deserved, if he came aprowling around here in the night, and somebody filled him chuck full of shot? I don’t look at it that way. Fact is, I’m sorry for the poor wretch; and I’d share my dinner with him, if I had a chance, laugh at me for a silly if you want to.”

“But you don’t hear me laughing at all, Bumpus,” Thad told him; “and I understand just how you feel about it. Nature gave you a tender heart, and made Giraffe on different lines; but I tell you plainly, I’ve often wished some of the other fellows were more like Cornelius Hawtree!”

“Oh! have you, Thad?” said the fat boy, with a suspicious tremor in his voice. “Thank you, thank you ever so much for saying that. I’d rather have your good opinion, than that of any other fellow I ever knew.”

And somehow he felt so light-hearted after receiving that little sincere compliment from the watchful scout-master, that he really found no great difficulty in keeping wide-awake during the entire term of his vigil; for there is nothing equal to a little praise to set a boy thinking, and therefore remaining vigilant.

When the time came to make a change he spoke to Thad as soon as the other drew near his position.

“Never batted an eye once, Thad, and that’s a fact,” he announced, proudly. “Oh! I’m on the road to better things, I tell you. And while I heard lots of queer old grunting and groaning deep in the swamp, I didn’t see a suspicious thing. Will you get Giraffe and Bob White out now?”

“Yes, because they come tailing after us, according to the programme;” and while Thad crept into the second tent to arouse the boys, Bumpus hung around so as to inform Giraffe that he had fulfilled his duties as sentry to the letter.

However, the tall scout seemed to want to hurry past him, and only gave a grunt in reply when Bumpus launched forth on an elaborate account of how he had proved himself equal to the test. In fact, one might have thought that Giraffe was holding his breath as though he feared to take cold by breathing the cool night air too suddenly, after coming out from his snug blanket.

When Thad and Bumpus had also crawled under the flap of the first tent, all immediately became quiet again, the new sentries having taken up their positions as marked out by the patrol leader, in whose hands such things must lie, as he is always in charge of the camp.

Bumpus heard a little restless moving about when he tried to settle down, as if at least one of the other occupants of the tent might be trying to change his position. But the fat scout was too tired and sleepy to bother his head about any trifle like this; besides his cold seemed to get no better, and he was apt to give a loud sneeze at any time.

He distinctly remembered allowing his head to drop on the rude pillow he had fashioned out of his shoes, covered with his clothes-bag; and then seemed to be carried away on the wings of dreams.

His waking up was very sudden, for it seemed to Bumpus that a cannon had been discharged close to his ears, after which came all sorts of loud calling.