Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/163

 enough. It is so. But it can not be any country on the surface of the globe. M'sieu must have gone through a hole and found hell!"

The shouts of laughter greeting such outbursts increased Lander's hunger for companionship. Then he discovered he was so sleepy that only by some miracle could he hope to keep awake. He would be helpless unless he walked about. He fought the minutes standing erect and found himself swaying on his feet. He dared not sit down.

As it grew darker and the camp quieted and there was no one to keep tabs on him he took to trotting round his post in a small circle and found the action did much to keep him up. Every twenty minutes Porker's voice bawled the call, and as often the men repeated it, the answer rippling in a circle about the camp.

Six times the call came and was answered, and Lander ceased his nervous pacing back and forth and became confident he could fight the remaining thirty minutes. There was no life about the camp except as the ghostly forms of gray wolves drifted near to investigate. Never had half an hour dragged out to such a miserable length. But at last came the call, and another ten minutes would see the guards free to seek their blankets.