Part 11 (2/2)
For guard duty that night it was arranged that Jim Ferrers and Joe Timmins should relieve each other. Tom also offered to stay up with Ferrers, Harry taking the watch trick with Timmins, though neither of the young engineers was armed or cared to be.
Harry and Timmins were to take the first watch. The others retired early. Tom Reade was about to begin undressing when Hazelton came in for a moment.
While the chums were chatting, Alf Drew's forlorn figure showed at the doorway of the tent.
”Say, boss,” complained Alf, ”I haven't any place to sleep.”
”What?” Reade demanded in pretended surprise, ”with nearly all the ground in Nevada at your disposal?”
”But that isn't a bed,” contended Alf.
”Right you are there, lad” agreed Tom.
”Now, see here, boss, only one of you two is going to sleep at a time tonight. I'm tired---I ache. Why can't I sleep on the other cot in this tent?”
”Come here,” ordered Tom.
Alf wonderingly advanced.
Whiff! whiff! moved the young engineer's nostrils.
”Just as I thought,” sighed Reade. ”You've been smoking cigarettes without any let-up ever since supper.”
”Well, I have ter,” argued Drew.
”And now you smell as fragrant as a gas-house, Alf. Mr. Hazelton is rather particular about the little matter of cleanliness.
If you were to sleep on his cot the smell of cigarettes would be so strong that I don't believe Mr. Hazelton could stay on his cot when it came his time to turn in.”
”But say! If you knew how dead, dog-tired I am!” moaned Alf.
”Oh, let him sleep on my cot,” interposed Harry, good-heartedly.
”If I can't stand the cot when I come to use it, then it won't be the first night that I've slept on hard ground and rested well.”
”All right, Alf, climb in,” nodded Tom. ”But see here. Cigarettes make you as nervous as a lunatic. If you have any bad dreams tonight, and begin yelling, then I'll rise and throw you outdoors.
Do you understand?”
”Yes,” mumbled the boy. ”But I won't dream. I'm not nervous now. It's only when I can't get enough cigs that I'm nervous.”
”You should have seen him this afternoon,” Tom continued, turning to his chum. ”The lad and I took a walk. At every other step he kept imagining that he heard rattlesnakes rattling.”
”And I did, too,” contended Alf stoutly. ”You know I did. You heard 'em yourself, Mr. Reade.”
”I didn't hear a single rattler,” Tom replied soberly.
”Let the tired little fellow go to bed in peace,” urged Harry.
”All right,” Tom agreed.
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