Thus taken off his guard, Long threw back the bedding, rose to one elbow, still half asleep, and reached for his shoes, laughing and yawning alternately. Then, as he woke up a little more, he saw a better way to dress, dropped the shoes and unfurled his pillow--which, by day, he wore as overalls. Fumbling behind him, where the pillow had lain, he found a much-soiled handkerchief and tenderly dabbed at his swollen eye. "Bit of steel in my eye from a drill-head," he explained. "Jiminy, but it's sore!" Plainly he took the accusation as a pleasantry calling for no answer. "I mean it! I'm going to keep you under guard!" said Captain Griffith bitingly. Poor, sleepy Tobe, half-way into his overalls, stared up at Mr. Griffith; his mouth dropped open--he was quite at a loss for words. The captain glared back at him. Tobe kicked the overalls off and cuddled back into bed. "Bully!" he said. "Then I won't have to get breakfast!" Gurdon Steele sat up in bed, a happy man. His eye gave Mr. Long a discreetly confidential look, as of one who restrains himself, out of instinctive politeness, from a sympathetic and meaningful tap of one's forehead. A new thought struck Mr. Long. He reached over behind Steele for the rifle at the bed's edge and thrust it into the latter's hands. "Here, Boy Scout! Watch me!" he whispered. "Don't let me escape while I sleep a few lines! I'm Bransford!" Gurdie rubbed his eyes and giggled. "Don't you mind Rex. That's the worst of this pipe habit. You never can tell how they'll break out next." "Yes, laugh, you blind bat!" said Rex bitterly. "I've got him all the same, and I'm going to keep him while you go to Escondido!" His rifle was tucked under his arm; he patted the barrel significantly. It slowly dawned upon Mr. Long that Captain Griffith was not joking, after all, and an angry man was he. He sat up in bed. "Oh, piffle! Oh, fudge! Oh, pickled moonshine! If I'm Bransford what the deuce am I doing here? Why, you was both asleep! I could 'a' shot your silly heads off and you'd 'a' never woke up. You make me tired!" "Don't mind him, Long. He'll feel better when he takes a nap," said Gurd joyfully. "He has poor spells like this and he misses his nurse. We always make allowances for him." Mr. Long's indignation at last overcame his politeness, and in his wrath he attacked friend and foe indiscriminately.