Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/120

 “A few minutes before I fired; I think I left him asleep near the other wheel of the wagon where I had been standing. Fact is, I know he was asleep.”

“And he warn’t thar when ye come back, which was powerful soon afterward?”

“I didn’t think of Jethro, but I must have seen him if he had stayed where he was.”

“What do ye think become of him?”

“He must have run away; I never saw a person so scared as he when he learned we were likely to be attacked by Indians. I am afraid he has scampered off over the prairie.”

“Couldn’t have done that very well without some one seeing him; more’n likely he crawled in among the hosses and oxen where he thought he’d be safer. Hark!”

From the interior of the wagon near which they were standing sounded the heavy snoring of some person.

“I’ll bet ye that’s him,” chuckled Shagbark.

“He isn’t the only one that puts on the loud pedal when he sleeps.”

Shagbark stepped on the tongue of the vehicle and peered inside. It was too dark to see anything. In fact, two other men were breathing less stertoriously, but he located the