"Hello!" answered Darrin, coming away from the campfire. Then
he waited until the trio were close at hand before he went on:

"I judge you didn't have any luck."

"We got close to one of the scamps," muttered Tom, "whom Dick
seems to have hit on the heel with a stone, but he slipped away
from us under the trees."

"It's only half an hour to dawn," yawned Dave, looking at his
watch. "We can turn in, now, I guess, for the rascals must be
about through with the guessing match they've put up for us."

"We could turn in now," suggested Danny Grin. "We don't have
to go to sleep, you know, but we could lie in our blankets and
talk the time away until dawn. The campfire will keep going until
after daylight comes on."

That seemed rather a sensible course. Dick nodded, and all hands,
after Darry had thrown a few more sticks on the fire, went into
the tent, undressed, donned pajamas and slipped in under a single
thickness of blanket apiece, and lay there talking.

Yet it proved to be a case of gape and yawn. One after another
their eyes closed and more regular breathing started.

Dick Prescott was the last one to drop off. Yet he had barely
more than lost himself in slumberland when there came a blast
so close at hand that, to the boys, it seemed as though they must
have been blown from their cots.