Page:Clarence Mulford - Man from Bar-20.djvu/324



ATES, the wounded, tossed restlessly in his bunk, and finally rolled over and faced the dark room.

"Never was so wide awake in my life," he grumbled. "Been settin' around too much lately. If I wanted to stay awake I'd be as sleepy as th' devil."

"Better try it again," counseled Quigley, shifting from his loophole. "You don't want to be sleepy tomorrow when yo're on guard."

"Tom," said Gates, ignoring the advice. "I've been doin' some thinkin'. A feller does a lot of thinkin' when he can't sleep. We made a couple of mistakes, holin' up like this. In th' first place, if we had to hole up, we should 'a' occupied both end houses, 'stead of only one. This way, they can walk right up to within twenty feet of us, use th' cook shack, th' grub in th' store-house, an' them store-house loopholes, which is worse. If we had both end houses, two men in each, they couldn't get anywhere close to us except along th' crick an' up on th' cliff."

"Yes; I reckon so," said Quigley. Tain't too late yet, mebby. I didn't like th' idea of splittin' up our forces. As far as grub is concerned, we're near as well 312