They were tired after the long day’s journey, and they did not talk much.  The foliage about them was so thick, making it so dark within the little shade that the need of a watch seemed small, but they decided to keep it, nevertheless.  The Ring Tailed Panther would take the first half of the night and Urrea the second half.  The next night would be divided between Obed and Ned.

Ned raked up the leaves at the place that he had selected, folded himself between his blankets, and was asleep in five minutes.  The last thing that he remembered seeing was the broad figure of the Ring Tailed Panther, sitting with his back against a tree, and his rifle across his knees.

But Ned awoke hours later—­after midnight in fact—­although it was not a real awakening, instead a sort of half way station from slumberland.  He did not move, but opened his eyes partly, and saw that Urrea was now on guard.  The young Mexican was not sitting as the Ring Tailed Panther had been, but was standing some yards away, with his rifle across his shoulder.  Ned thought in a vague way that he looked trim and strong, and then his heavy lids dropped down again.  But he did not fall back into the deep sleep from which he had come.  The extra sense, his remarkable power of intuition or divination was at work.  Without any effort of his will the mechanism of his brain was moving and gave him a signal.  He heard a slight noise and he lifted the heavy lids.

Urrea had walked to the other side of the little glade, his feet brushing some of the dry leaves as he went.  There was nothing unusual in such action on the part of a sentinel, but something in Urrea’s attitude seemed to Ned to denote expectancy.  His whole figure was drawn close together like that of one about to spring, and he leaned forward a little.  Yet this meant nothing.  Any good man on guard would be attentive to every sound of the forest, whether the light noise made by a squirrel, as he scampered along the bark of a tree, or a stray puff of wind rustling the leaves.

Ned made another effort of the will, and closed his eyes for the second time, but the warning sense, the intuitive note out of the infinite, would not be denied.  He was compelled to open his eyes once more and now his faculties were clear.  Urrea had moved again and now he was facing the sleepers.  He regarded them attentively, one by one, and in the dusk he could not see that Ned’s eyelids were not closed.  The boy did not stir, but a cold shiver ran down his spine.  He felt with all the power of second sight that something extraordinary was going to happen.

Urrea walked to the smoldering fire, and now Ned dropped his eyelids, until he looked only through a space as narrow as the edge of a knife blade.  Urrea stooped and took from the dying heap a long stick, still burning at the end.  Then he took another look at the three and suddenly disappeared among the bushes, carrying with him the burning stick.  He was so light upon his feet that he made no sound as he went.