"Now, you hold him a minute or two, Steve," remarked Jack, "while I go and get into some clothes. This night air is salubrious all right, but apt to set a fellow's teeth to chattering." "That's right, it is so," Toby acknowledged; but despite his shivering he would not retreat to his warm blanket until the show had ended. Jack hurried as best he could, having pity on his chums. When he came back partly dressed he sent them to their beds. "I'll tie up old Moses so he won't be apt to get loose again in a hurry," Jack advised them, and adding a bit reproachfully, "for you must have been in a hurry after watering him in the evening, Steve. After this I'll make it a point to see he's all right before I turn in." So the horse was led away, and his rope once more fastened, this time in such a secure fashion that there was no possibility of its getting untied. He could move around within a certain radius, and nip the sweet grass, as well as dream of how close he had been to the greatest banquet of his natural life. Before he went into the tent Jack reset the tin-pan trap. It had already paid for what little trouble it caused him, because only for the alarm having been given none of them might have heard Moses at his surreptitious work; and consequently he would have devoured the entire two weeks' supply of oats, or killed himself in the endeavor to dispose of them, which would have been a calamity in several ways, both for Moses and the camping party. Again did the little hand-torch come in for a meed of praise on the part of the one who had to carry out all these things in the middle of a dark night. Both the others seemed to be pretty far gone along the road to dreamland when Jack crept under his blankets. Toby did drowsily grunt, and ask if everything was all right, but apparently hardly knew what he was saying; so Jack only answered with a word, and cuddled under his coverings, for he felt a trifle chilled. There was no further alarm that night. The expected prowler did not show up, much to the satisfaction of all concerned; and morning found them in good shape. Moses was already whinnying as to remind them that horses got hungry. Apparently the old reprobate never knew what a close call he had had; left to his own resources, morning might not have been so calm for him, if he lived to see the sun rise at all. And as Toby wisely said, horse doctors must be as "scarce as hens' teeth" up in the Pontico Hills district. Somehow the adventure of the night seemed to appear even more comical when viewed in the broad light of day. Toby in particular laughed every time he thought of old Moses standing there, monarch of all he surveyed, and trying to gulp the oats down like mad, as though he feared it was too good a thing to last.