nger.

"Hello! none of that, now!" exclaimed Phil, as upon bending down, after
hearing a suspiciously heavy sound of breathing he discovered that
Larry had actually fallen asleep while sitting there. "Wake up, and
make your bed! The sooner you tumble in, the better for you, old top!
Why, you're snoring to beat the band."

"Don't want to go till the rest do," mumbled Larry.

"That's all right," laughed Phil, who could understand the real motive
that actuated the now ambitious Boy Scout; "we're all going to follow
suit. Hi! get a move on, Tony, and lug out your blanket. No matter
what happens, we oughtn't to let it keep us from getting a snooze.
That's good horse sense, believe me."

"Sure," said Larry, stirring with an effort, for he felt very stiff.
"Me to hit the downy pillow, which ain't so soft after all, if it is
made up of only air. But I'm dead tired, and want to rest the worst
kind. Thank you, Tony, for helping me. Ain't used to be chased by a
moss-back 'gator every day. Kind of gave me a bad five minutes, and I
must have taken a little cold too. Now I'm fixed all hunky dory. Good
night, fellows! Wake me early, mother dear, for tomorrow--tomorrow--"

Larry did not even finish the sentence. Sleep grappled with his
faculties as he was mumbling in this fashion.

"Say, he's off, Tony, as sure as you live," chuckled Phil. "My! don't
I sometimes wish I could forget all my troubles like Larry can, as soon
as he lays his head down. But no two are alike. And now Tony, that he
can't hear us, what's to be the programme in case they come tonight;
for I know you more'n half expect to see some of your people turn up
here, for Barker will have carried the news home?"

"Yuh jest mustn't do nawthin', Phil," said the swamp boy earnestly.
"If so be they comes, weuns has got tuh throw up our hands, and call
quits. Take hit jest as cool as yuh kin, an' leave hit tuh me. They
ain't agwine tuh hu't yuh, so long's Tony McGee's 'long. An' I sure
means tuh let 'em know what all yuh done foh me. Jest hold up yuh
han's, and say yuh was acomin' down hyah tuh talk with McGee. An' I
reckons as how yuh won't be in too big a hurry tuh tell how yuh happens
tuh be Doc. Lancing's boy."

With these last words of Tony's ringing in his ears Phil lay down to
try and coax sleep to visit his eyes. But he knew he would have a
difficult task, because of the fact that his affairs were now
approaching the climax which, viewed fr