“Bits o’ fire,” suggested Joe.

“I tink dey are vorlds,” muttered Henri, “an’ have peepels in dem.  I have hear men say dat.”

A long silence followed, during which, no doubt, the star-gazers were working out various theories in their own minds.

“Wonder,” said Dick again, “how far off they be.”

“A mile or two, maybe,” said Joe.

Henri was about to laugh sarcastically at this, but on further consideration he thought it would be more comfortable not to, so he lay still.  In another minute he said,—­

“Joe Blunt, you is ver’ igrant.  Don’t you know dat de books say de stars be hondreds, tousands—­oh! milleryons of mile away to here, and dat dey is more bigger dan dis vorld?”

Joe snored lightly, and his pipe fell out of his mouth at this point, so the conversation dropped.  Presently Dick asked in a low tone, “I say, Henri, are ye asleep?”

“Oui,” replied Henry faintly.  “Don’t speak, or you vill vaken me.”

“Ah, Crusoe! you’re not asleep, are you, pup?” No need to ask that question.  The instantaneous wag of that speaking tail and the glance of that wakeful eye, as the dog lifted his head and laid his chin on Dick’s arm, showed that he had been listening to every word that was spoken.  We cannot say whether he understood it, but beyond all doubt he heard it.  Crusoe never presumed to think of going to sleep until his master was as sound as a top, then he ventured to indulge in that light species of slumber which is familiarly known as “sleeping with one eye open.”  But, comparatively as well as figuratively speaking, Crusoe slept usually with one eye and a half open, and the other half was never very tightly shut.

Gradually Dick’s pipe fell out of his mouth, an event which the dog, with an exercise of instinct almost, if not quite, amounting to reason, regarded as a signal for him to go off.  The camp fire went slowly out, the stars twinkled down at their reflections in the brook, and a deep breathing of wearied men was the only sound that rose in harmony with the purling stream.

Before the sun rose next morning, and while many of the brighter stars were still struggling for existence with the approaching day, Joe was up and buckling on the saddle-bags, while he shouted to his unwilling companions to rise.

“If it depended on you,” he said, “the Pawnees wouldn’t be long afore they got our scalps.  Jump, ye dogs, an’ lend a hand, will ye?”

A snore from Dick and a deep sigh from Henri was the answer to this pathetic appeal.  It so happened, however, that Henri’s pipe, in falling from his lips, had emptied the ashes just under his nose, so that the sigh referred to drew a quantity thereof into his throat and almost choked him.  Nothing could have been a more effective awakener.  He was up in a moment coughing vociferously.  Most men have a tendency to vent ill-humour on some one, and they generally do it on one whom they deem to be worse than themselves.  Henri, therefore, instead of growling at Joe for rousing him, scolded Dick for not rising.