"Hand me my camera, will you, please?" asked Fitz, politely. "What do you want of it?" demanded Walt. "I want to use it. We haven't anything else to do." "Sure," said Walt; he tossed it over. "Take pictures of yourselves, and show folks how you smart Scouts were fooled." I didn't see what Fitz could use his camera on, here. And he didn't seem to be using it. He kept it beside him, was all. There weren't any animals around this kind of a camp. But the general and I didn't ask him any questions. He was wise, was old Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand, and probably he had some scheme up his sleeve. We just sat. The two fellows played cards and smoked and talked rough and loud, and wasted their time this way. The sun was mighty hot, and they yawned and yawned. Tobacco smoking so much made them stupid. But we yawned, too. The general made the sleep sign to Fitz and me, and we nodded. The general and I stretched out and were quiet. I really was sleepy; we had had a hard night. "You fellows going to sleep?" asked Walt. We grunted at him. "Then we'll tie your hands and we'll go to sleep," he said. "Come on, Bat. Maybe it's a put-up job." "No, sir; that wasn't in the bargain," objected the general. "Aw, we got your parole till twelve o'clock, but we're going to tie you anyway," replied that Walt. "We didn't say how long we'd leave your hands loose. We aren't going to sit around and keep awake, watching you guys. When we wake up we untie you again." We couldn't do anything; and they tied the general's hands and my hands, but Fitzpatrick begged off. "I want to use my camera," he claimed. "And I've got only one hand anyway. I can't untie knots with one hand." They didn't know how clever Fitz was; so they just moved him and fastened him by the waist to a tree where he couldn't reach us. "We'll be watching and listening," they warned. "And if you try any foolishness you'll get hurt." They stretched out, and pretended to snooze. I didn't see, myself, how Fitz could untie those hard knots with his one hand, in time to do any good. They were hard knots, drawn tight, and the rope was a clothes-line; and he was set against a tree with the rope about his body and the knots behind him on the other side of the tree. I didn't believe that Bat and Walt would sleep hard; but while I waited to see what would happen next, I dozed off, myself. Something tapped me on the head, and I woke up in a jiffy. Fitz must have tossed a twig at me, because when I looked over at him he made the silence sign. He was busy; and what do you think? He had taken his camera apart, and unscrewed the lenses, and had focused on the rope about him. He had wriggled so that the sun shone on the lenses, and a little spire of smoke was rising from him. Bat and Walt were asleep; they never made a move, but they both snored. And Fitz was burning his rope in two, on his body.