for the old fire kept extendin' all the while.
So I started to wake you all, and Davy, he joined in. After that Eli and
Jim joined us, and then the rest of you came. And believe me, fellers,
Davy and me'll never forget it. You did handsome by us, and we've been
saved from disgrace that would have sent us into an early grave, hey,
Davy?"

"Just so," grunted the other, who was licking several burns he had
received on his bare hands during the fierce little engagement just
ended, though he made no complaint, seeming to think he had gotten off
pretty easily, considering the serious offense of which he had been
guilty, that of sleeping on his post, and which might have cost him his
life in war times, had he been a soldier.

Thad noticed this fact, and quietly getting out some salve he carried
for just such occasions forced Davy to let him attend to his hurts,
though the other insisted that they "did not amount to much, anyway."

"How do you think it started?" Giraffe asked, and in so doing he really
voiced the thoughts of everybody.

"Huh! I reckon that's an easy one to answer," replied Step Hen,
promptly. "Anybody c'n see at just a single look that the wind must have
picked up a live coal from the fire, and carried it into a bunch of
stuff to leeward. After that it was fanned, till it spread wider and
wider. That was going on while Davy and me snoozed away like a pair of
sillies. No use talking, boys, I'm ashamed of myself; and let me tell
you, it'll be a long time before I ever go to sleep on duty again--not
if I have to keep jabbing a pin into my leg every minute or so, to make
me jump."

"Does that explanation go, Thad?" asked Bumpus, still breathing hard
after his recent violent exertions.

"Well, it looks that way, for the fire was actually to leeward of the
camp when I first saw it," answered the patrol leader; but there must
have been something in his manner rather than his speech that caught the
attention of Giraffe.

"But you ain't _quite_ satisfied, are you, Thad?" he remarked,
pointedly. "You just keep athinkin' that perhaps it _wasn't_ an
accident after all? Am I right, now?"

"Wow! what does that kind of talk stand for?" burst out Bumpus. "Are you
hinting that it was all a part of a dark scheme to burn us out of camp?"

"Wait till Eli and Jim come back," Thad went on. "You've noticed that
they're not with us right now. Fact is, they took the lantern, and went
off about the time we were finishing our