Adventure stories; Mines and mineral resources -- Fiction; Western stories
In a little space he returned, leading his own mount and Pinkerton’s by
the lariats which were around their necks, and as he made fast these
lariats to a stone Farrell looked at Mr. Pinkerton across the glow, and
asked him, suspicious as ever, "What’s that for?"
"Oh! Just so as not to be indebted to you," replied Pinkerton, and
coming closer to the fire he rolled his one grey blanket round him and,
knocking out the ashes of his pipe, lay down to rest, the half-breed
following suit. But after they had lain down, and when I, a little
later, at a word from Donoghue, suggesting I should "turn in," unpacked
my blankets, which I had found among the pile of our mixed belongings, I
saw the half-breed’s eyes still open and with no sign of sleep in them.
"So," said I to myself, "Pinkerton and the half-breed, I expect, have
arranged to share watch and watch, without having the appearance of
doing so."
And indeed one could scarcely wonder at any such protective arrangement
in such a camp as this. Donoghue and Apache Kid, indeed, were the only
two there who could close their eyes in sleep that night with anything
like a reasonable belief that the chances of their awakening to life
again were greater than their chances of never breathing again the
sage-scented air of morning.
*CHAPTER XIV*
_*Apache Kid Prophesies*_
You may wonder how it was possible for me to lie down, to roll myself
round in my blankets, to fall asleep in such a camp, in such company as
that. I, indeed, wondered at myself as I did so, wondered how I came by
the heedlessness, for I cannot call it courage, that allowed me to
compose myself to slumber. Anything might have happened in the dark
hours, murder and sudden death; but I was excessively fatigued; my body
ached; my nerves too were unstrung by the torture of the cliff. Sleep I
must and sleep I did, on the instant that I stretched myself and laid
down my head. Perhaps the sigh with which I dismissed from my mind the
anxieties that might have kept me wakeful was more of a prayer than a
sigh.
Across the fire of smaller branches that had cooked our supper, in the
preparing of which each took part, a great log was laid, so that no
replenishing would be necessary.
It was the sound of Donoghue’s voice that woke me to blue night,
starshine, and the red glow of the log. His position was unaltered. I
could have believed that he had not moved a muscle since my lying down,
and the stars told me I had slept some time. He reclined with his legs
crossed, his feet stretched to the glow, his hands in his coat pockets,
and his unloosened blanket-roll serving for a cushion to the small of
his back.
"There ain’t no call for me to turn in," he was saying. "I don’t have
to turn in to please you."
I snuggled the blankets under my chin and looked to see who he was
addressing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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