onder," said Dick again, "how far off they be."

"A mile or two, maybe," said Joe.

Henri was about to laugh sarcastically at this, but on further
consideration he thought it would be more comfortable not to, so he
lay still. In another minute he said,--

"Joe Blunt, you is ver' igrant. Don't you know dat de books say de
stars be hondreds, tousands--oh! milleryons of mile away to here, and
dat dey is more bigger dan dis vorld?"

Joe snored lightly, and his pipe fell out of his mouth at this point,
so the conversation dropped. Presently Dick asked in a low tone, "I
say, Henri, are ye asleep?"

"Oui," replied Henry faintly. "Don't speak, or you vill vaken me."

"Ah, Crusoe! you're not asleep, are you, pup?" No need to ask that
question. The instantaneous wag of that speaking tail and the glance
of that wakeful eye, as the dog lifted his head and laid his chin on
Dick's arm, showed that he had been listening to every word that was
spoken. We cannot say whether he understood it, but beyond all doubt
he heard it. Crusoe never presumed to think of going to sleep until
his master was as sound as a top, then he ventured to indulge in that
light species of slumber which is familiarly known as "sleeping with
one eye open." But, comparatively as well as figuratively speaking,
Crusoe slept usually with one eye and a half open, and the other half
was never very tightly shut.

Gradually Dick's pipe fell out of his mouth, an event which the dog,
with an exercise of instinct almost, if not quite, amounting to
reason, regarded as a signal for him to go off. The camp fire went
slowly out, the stars twinkled down at their reflections in the brook,
and a deep breathing of wearied men was the only sound that rose in
harmony with the purling stream.

Before the sun rose next morning, and while many of the brighter stars
were still struggling for existence with the approaching day, Joe was
up and buckling on the saddle-bags, while he shouted to his unwilling
companions to rise.

"If it depended on you," he said, "the Pawnees wouldn't be long afore
they got our scalps. Jump, ye dogs, an' lend a hand, will ye?"

A snore from Dick and a deep sigh from Henri was the answer to this
pathetic appeal. It so happened, however, that Henri's pipe, in
falling from his lips, had emptied the ashes just under his nose, so
that the sigh referred to drew a quantity thereof into his throat and
almost choked him. Nothing could have been a more effec