7 The Great Sleep

When Phil drew the warm leaves about him he felt a mighty sensation of relief, accompanied by a complete mental and physical relaxation. The supreme tension of the spirit that had borne him up so long was gone now, when it was needed no longer, and he uttered a deep sigh of content. Bill Breakstone put a hand upon his shoulder.

“Phil.” he said simply, “I owe you so much that I can’t ever repay it.”

“Your chance will come,” replied the boy. “You’ll probably do more for me than I’ve ever done for you.”

“We’ll see,” said Bill Breakstone. “I’m thinking, Phil, that this is about the best hiding place we could have found, so we’ll just lie quiet, as we’ll see the edge of the day inside of half an hour.”

The two remained perfectly still. Yet they could hear for awhile their own strained breathing, and Phil felt his heart constrict painfully after his long flight. But the breathing of both grew easier. In a short while it was normal again. Then they saw a touch of gray in the east, the rain ceased like a dissolving mist, a silver light fell over the forest, turning presently to gold, and it was day in the east.

Some of the sunbeams entered the thick jungle of forest where they lay, touching the leaves and grass here and there with gold, but in most places the shadows still hovered. Phil and Breakstone looked at their surroundings. They had left no trail in coming there, and the bushes about them were so dense that even Indian eyes ten feet away could not have seen them.

The sunlight was deepening. Birds in the trees began to sing. All the beings of the wilderness, little and big, awoke to life. Trees and grass dried swiftly under the strong fresh wind. Bill Breakstone glanced at his youthful comrade.

“Phil,” he said, “I’ll take the rifle, and you go to sleep. You’ve had a harder time than I have, and, when you wake up, I’ll tell you how I was captured.”

“I think I’ll do it, Bill,” said the boy, putting his arm under his head and closing his eyes. The strain was gone from his nerves now, and sleep came readily. In three minutes he was oblivious of Comanches and all else that the world contained. Bill Breakstone could have slept if he had tried, but he did not try. Under a manner nearly always light and apparently superficial he concealed a strong nature and much depth of feeling. It seemed to him that at the last moment a hand had been stretched out to save him from the worst of fates. It seemed to him, also, that it must have been a sort of inspiration, the direction of a supreme will, for Phil to have come to him at such a time. It was a brave deed, a wonderful deed, and it had been brilliantly successful.

The light was strong, and Bill Breakstone looked down at the boy who was a younger brother to him now. He saw that the strain upon Phil had been great. Even while he slept his face was very white, except where fatigue and suspense had painted it black beneath the eyes. Phil Bedford had done more than his share, and it was now for him, Bill Breakstone, to do the rest. He slipped the muzzle of the rifle forward in order that it might command the mouth of the hollow, and waited. He would have pulled more leaves and brush before the entrance, but he knew that any disturbance of nature would attract the eye of a passing Comanche, and he allowed everything to remain exactly as it had been.

He lay comfortably among the leaves, and for a long time he did not stir. Phil breathed regularly and easily, and Bill saw that he would be fully restored when he awoke. Bill himself thought neither of hunger nor thirst, the tension was too great for that, but he never ceased to watch the sweep of trees and brush. It was half way toward noon when he saw some bushes about ten yards in front of him trembling slightly. He became at once alert and suspicious. He drew himself up in the attitude of one who is ready for instant action, slipping the muzzle of the rifle a little farther forward.

The bushes moved again, and something came into view. Bill Breakstone sank back, and his apprehension departed. It was a timber wolf, gray and long. A dangerous enough beast, if a man alone and unarmed met a group of them, but Bill, with the rifle, had no fear. The wolf sniffed the odor of flesh, sniffed again, knew that it was the odor of human flesh, and his blood became afraid within him. Bill Breakstone laughed quietly, but the boy slept placidly on. The incident amused Bill, and, therefore, it was welcome. It broke the monotony of the long quiet, and, just when he was laughing noiselessly for the fourth time over the wolf’s discomfiture, the bushes moved again. Bill, as before, slipped the muzzle of his rifle farther forward and waited. A slight pungent odor came to his nostrils. The bushes moved more than before, although without noise, and a great yellow body came into view. The eyes were green, the claws sharp and long, and the body lithe and powerful. It was a splendid specimen of the southwestern puma, a great cat that could pull down a deer. But Bill Breakstone was still unafraid. He raised the rifle and aimed it at the puma, although he did not press the trigger.

“I can kill you, my friend, with a single bullet,” he murmured, “but the report of that rifle would probably bring the Comanches upon us. Therefore, I will look you down.”

The puma paused in doubt and indecision, restlessly moving his tail, and staring with his great green eyes until they met the gray eyes of the human creature, looking down the sights of the rifle barrel. That steady, steel-like gaze troubled the puma. He was large and powerful. He could have struck down the man at a single blow, but the heart within that mass of bone and muscle became afraid. The green eyes looked fearfully into the gray ones, and at last turned aside. The great beast turned stealthily, and slid into the thicket, at first slowly, and then in a run, as the terror that he could not see crowded upon his heels.

Bill Breakstone had laughed several times that morning, but now he laughed with a deep unction.

“I’m proud of myself,” he murmured. “It’s something to outlook a panther, but I don’t know that I’d have looked so straight and hard if I hadn’t had the rifle ready, in case the eyes failed. Now I wonder who or what will be the next invader of our premises.”

His wonder lasted only until noon, when the sun was poised directly overhead, and the open spaces were full of its rays. Then, as light as the beasts themselves had been, two Comanches walked into full view. Bill Breakstone was as still as ever, but his hand lay upon the trigger of the rifle.

The Comanches were not a pleasant sight to eyes that did not wish to see them. They were powerful men, naked save for the waist cloth, their bodies painted with many strange symbols and figures. Although most of their tribe were yet armed with bows and arrows, each carried a fine rifle. Their faces were wary, cunning, and cruel. They were far more to be dreaded than wolf or panther. Yet Bill Breakstone at that moment felt but little fear of either. He was upheld by a great stimulus. The boy who slept so peacefully by his side had saved him in the face of everything, and, if the time had come, he would do as much for Phil. He felt himself, with the rifle and pistol, a match for both warriors, and his breathing was steady and regular.

The warriors stopped and stood in the bush, talking and pointing toward the east. Bill Breakstone surmised that they were talking about him and Phil, and it was likely from their pointing fingers that they believed the fugitives had gone toward the east. As Bill watched them, his suspense was mingled with a sort of curiosity. Would some instinct warn them that Phil and he lay not ten yards away? The woods were vast, and they and all their comrades could not search every spot. Would this be one of the spots over which they must pass?

It took two minutes to decide the question, and then the warriors walked on toward the east, their brown bodies disappearing in the foliage. Bill drew a mighty breath that came from every crevice and cranny of his lungs. He did not know until then how great his suspense had been. He sank back a little and let the rifle rest softly on the leaves beside him. He glanced at Phil. His face was less drawn now, and much of the color had come back. While Bill awaited the crisis, his finger on the trigger, the sleeping boy had grown stronger. Bill decided that he would let him sleep on.

Bill Breakstone had been through much. He, too, began to feel sleepy. The dangers of animal and man had come and passed, leaving his comrade and him untouched. His nerves were now subdued and relaxed, and he felt a great physical and mental peace. The day, too, was one calculated to soothe. The air was filled with the mildness of early spring. A gentle wind blew, and the boughs and bushes rustled together, forming a sound that was strangely like a song of peace.

But Bill Breakstone was a man watchful, alert, a sentinel full of strength and resolution. He would not sleep, no, not he, not while so much depended upon him, yet the song among the leaves was growing sweeter and gentler all the time. He had never felt such a soothing quiet in all his life. The complete relaxation after so much danger and tension was at hand, and it was hard for one to watch the forest and be troubled about foes who would no longer come. Yet he would remain awake and keep faithful guard, and, as he murmured his resolution for the fifth time, his drooping eyelids shut down entirely, and he slept as soundly as the boy who lay by his side, his chest rising and falling as he breathed long and regularly.

Phil Bedford and Bill Breakstone slept all that afternoon. It was a mighty sleep, the great sleep following complete mental and physical exhaustion, the sleep that comes at such times to strong, healthy beings, in whom the co-ordination of brain, muscle, and nerve is complete.

By some unconscious method of keeping time they breathed in perfect unison, and the gentle wind, which all the while was blowing through the leaves, kept time with them, too. Thus the evening shortened. Hour by hour dropped into the sandglass of time. The two, rivals of the ancient seven of famous memory, slept on. Both the wolf and the puma, driven by curiosity, came back. They crept a little nearer than before, but not too near. They felt instinctively that the mighty sleepers, mightily as they slept, could yet be awakened, and the smell of man contained a quality that was terrifying. So they went away, and, an hour after they were gone, the same two Comanches, naked to the waist, painted hideously in many symbols and decorations, and savage and cruel of countenance, came back in their places. But Bill Breakstone and Phil lay safe in the leaves under the bank, sleeping peacefully without dreams. So far as the Comanches were concerned, they were a thousand miles away, and presently the two warriors disappeared again in the depths of the forest, this time not to return.

Time went on. The two slept the great sleep so quietly that all the normal life of the woods about them was resumed. Woodpeckers drummed upon the sides of the hollow trees, a red bird in a flash of flame shot among the boughs, quail scuttled in the grass, and a rabbit hopped near. Midafternoon of a cloudless day came. The sun shot down its most brilliant beams, the whole forest was luminous with light. The Comanches ceased their search, confident that the fugitives were gone now beyond their overtaking, and returned to their villages and other enterprises, but Breakstone and Phil slept their great sleep.

Twilight came, and they were still sleeping. Neither had stirred an inch from his place. The little animals that hopped about in the thickets believed them dead, they were go quiet, and came nearer. Night came on, thick and dark. An owl in a tree hooted mournfully, and an owl in another tree a half mile away hooted a mournful answer. Phil and his comrade did not hear, because they still lay in their great sleep, and the doings of the world, great or small, did not concern them.

Phil awoke first. It was then about midnight, and so dark in the alcove that he could not see. His eyes still heavy with sleep and his senses confused, he sat up. He shook his head once or twice, and recollection began to come back. Surely the daylight had come when he went to sleep! And where was Bill Breakstone? He heard a regular breathing, and, reaching out his hands, touched the figure of his comrade. Both had slept, and no harm had come to them. That was evident because he also touched the rifle and pistol, and they would have been the first objects taken by a creeping enemy. But surely it could not have been a dream about his going to sleep in the daylight! He remembered very well that the sun was rising and that there were golden beams on the bushes. Now it was so dark that he could see only a few faint stars in the sky, and the bashful rim of a moon. He sat up and gave Bill Breakstone a vigorous shake.

“Bill,” he said, “wake up! It’s night, but what night I don’t know!”

Bill Breakstone yawned tremendously, stretched himself as much as the narrow space would allow, and then slowly and with dignity sat up. He, too, was somewhat confused, but he pretended wisdom while he was trying to collect his senses. The two could barely see each other, and each felt rather than saw the wonder in the other’s eyes.

“Well,” said Bill Breakstone at last, “I’d have you to know, Sir Philip of the Dream and the Snore, though I can’t prove that you’ve done either any more than I can prove that I haven’t done both, that we’re the genuine and true Babes in the Wood, only we’ve waked up. Here we’ve been asleep, maybe a week, maybe a month, and the pitying little birds have come and covered us up with leaves, and we’ve been warm and snug, and the wild animals haven’t eaten us up, and the bad men, that is to say the Comanches, haven’t found us. How do you feel, Phil?”

“Fine, never better in my life.”

“That describes me, also, with beautiful accuracy. We’ll never know, maybe, how long we’ve slept, whether one day, two days, or three days, but a good spirit has been watching over us; of that I’m sure.

“I don’t think that’s a bad poem, Phil, considering the short time I’ve had for its composition, and you’ll observe that, with a modesty not common among poets, I’ve put you first.”

“It’s all right for the time,” said Phil, “but don’t do it too often. But, Bill, I’d trade a whole slab of poetry for an equal weight in beef or venison. I’m beginning to feel terribly hungry.”

“I’d make the trade, too,” said Bill Breakstone, “and that’s not holding poetry so cheap, either. It’s pleasant for the Babes in the Wood to wake up again, but there’s a disadvantage; you’ve got to eat, and to eat you’ve got to find something that can be eaten. I’m like King Richard, ‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!’ But I wouldn’t ride that horse; I’d eat him.”

“What time o’ night would you say it is, Bill?”

Bill Breakstone attentively studied the few stars to be seen in the extremely dusky heavens.

“I’d say it was somewhere between six o’clock in the evening and six o’clock in the morning, with the emphasis on the ‘somewhere.’ I wonder what’s happened around in these woods since we went to sleep last week, Phil; but I suppose we’ll never know.”

Bill stood up, and with his fingers combed the leaves out of his hair.

“Phil,” he said, “I’ll tell you the story of my life for the last day or two. It doesn’t make a long narrative, but while it was happening it was tremendously moving to me. When I left you I skipped along through the edge of the woods and came to the plain. Then I saw the Indian village and the Indian horses grazing on the meadows. I looked them over pretty thoroughly, concluded I didn’t like ’em, and started back to tell you about ’em. I thought I was mighty smart, but I wasn’t smart enough by half.”

“What happened?”

“Just as I turned around to start upon my worthy mission, three large, unclothed Comanches laid rude hands upon me. I didn’t have much chance, one against three, and surprise on their side, too. They soon had me by the neck and heels, and carried me off to their village, where they gave me the welcome due to a distinguished stranger. Black Panther was especially effusive. He wanted to know all about me and my friends, if any, perchance, were near by. It was the same band that had attacked our wagon train and that was beaten off. Their scouts had warned them that we were on the other side of the big forest, but they were afraid to attack again. I gathered from what Black Panther said—he understands English, and I understand some Comanche—that they believed me to be lost, strayed, or stolen—that is, I had wandered away in some manner, or had been left behind. The chief tried to get all sorts of information out of me, but I didn’t have any to tell. Finding that I was born dumb, he began to talk about punishments.”

“What were they going to do to you, Bill?”

“There was a lot of lurid talk. I say ‘lurid’ because I seem to remember something about flames. Anyway, it was to be unpleasant, and I suppose if you hadn’t come, Phil, at the right time, I shouldn’t ever have had the great sleep that I’ve enjoyed so much, at least not that particular kind of sleep. Phil, it looks to me as if you came when I called, and I’m not joking, either.”

“We’ll put that aside,” said Phil, “and hunt something to eat.”

“Yes, it’s our first duty to provision this army of two,” said Bill Breakstone, “and I think we can do it. The woods are full of game, but we’ll have to wait till morning for a shot. As for the Indians hearing the reports of our rifles, we must take the chance of that, but I don’t think they’ll roam very far from the village, and we’ll spend the rest of the night going toward the point where we left the wagon train, which is directly away from the Comanches. Toward morning we’ll sit down by the bank of a stream if we can find one, and wait for the game to come to drink.”

“That seems to me to be our best plan,” said Phil.

Both had a good idea of direction, and, despite the darkness, they advanced in a fairly straight line toward the point they sought. But they found it rough traveling through the thick undergrowth, among briers and across ravines and gulleys. Meanwhile, old King Hunger, bristling and fearsome, seized them and rent them with his fangs. There was no resisting. They must even suffer and stand it as best they could.

“I think it’s at least a thousand hours until day.” said Bill Breakstone at last. “Do you know, Phil, I’ve got to the point where I’d enjoy one of those stage banquets that I’ve often had. You don’t really eat anything. The plates are empty, the glasses are empty, and, empty as they all are, they’re generally whisked away before you can get a good long look at them. But there’s something soothing and filling about them anyway. Maybe it’s an illusion, but if an illusion is of the right kind, it’s just the right kind of thing that you ought to have.”

“An illusion may be all right for you, Bill,” returned Phil, “but what about some of those dinners you can get in New Orleans. Oyster soup, Bill; fish fresh from the gulf, Bill; nice old Virginia ham, Bill; stuffed Louisiana turkey, Bill; a haunch of venison, Bill; fried chicken, Bill; lamb chops, Bill; and a lot of other things that money can buy in New Orleans, Bill?”

“If you weren’t my best friend, Phil, and if you hadn’t just saved my life, I might make an attack upon you with the intent of bodily harm. You surely make me sour with your talk about the whole provision train that can be bought in New Orleans with money. Hear that old owl hooting! He’s just laughing at us. I’d stop and shoot him if we had light enough for a shot.”

“Never mind the owl, Bill,” said Phil. “Perhaps when we get that good juicy deer we’re looking for we can hoot back at him, if we feel like it.”

“That’s so,” said Bill, although he said it gloomily.

They advanced in silence another hour, and then Phil, was a little in advance, stopped suddenly. He had seen the gleam of water, and he pointed it out to his comrade.

“A spring,” said Bill Breakstone, “and it’s been trampled around the edges by many hoofs and paws.”

He stooped and tasted the water. Then he uttered a mighty sigh of satisfaction.

“A salt spring, too,” he said. “We’re in luck, Phil. I see our breakfast coming straight toward us at this spring, walking briskly on four legs. The wild animals always haunt such places, and if we don’t have savory steaks before the sun is an hour high, then I’m willing to starve to death. We must find an ambush. Here it is! Luck’s a funny thing, Phil. It goes right against you for awhile, and nothing seems able to break it. Then it turns right around and favors you, and no fool thing that you do seems to change it. But I guess it evens up in the long run.”

They found a dense clump of bushes about twenty yards from the salt spring, and sat down among them.

“There’s no wind at all,” whispered Bill Breakstone, “so I don’t think that any animal eager for his salt drink will notice us. I’ve got my heart set on deer, Phil, and deer we must have. Now which of us shall take the rifle and make the shot? The rifle is yours, you know, and you have first choice.”

But Phil insisted upon the older and more experienced man taking the weapon, and Breakstone consented. Then they lay quiet, eagerly watching every side of the spring. The darkness soon thinned away, and the bushes and trees became luminous in the early morning light.

“Something will come soon.” said Breakstone.

They waited a little longer, and then they heard a rustling among the bushes on the far side of the spring. The bushes moved, and a black-tailed deer, a splendid buck, stepped into the opening. He paused to sniff the air, but nothing strange or hostile came to his nostrils. The deadly figure, crouching in the bushes with the loaded rifle at his cheek, might have been a thousand miles away, for all the deer knew.

Phil and Bill Breakstone might have admired the deer at another time, but now other emotions urged them on. The deer stepped down to the water. Breakstone looked down the sights, and Phil trembled lest he should miss. He tried to look along the barrel himself and see what spot Bill had picked out on the animal’s body. Then he watched the marksman’s finger curl around the trigger and at last press hard upon it. The flash of flame leaped forth, the report sounded startlingly loud in the clear morning, and the deer jumped high in the air.

But when the big buck came down he ran into the forest as if he had not been touched. Phil uttered a gasp of despair, but Bill Breakstone only laughed.

“Don’t you fret, Phil,” he said. “My heart was in my mouth, but my bullet didn’t miss. He’s hit hard, and we’ve got nothing to do but follow him by the plain trail he’ll leave. We’ll come to our breakfast in less than ten minutes.”

Phil soon saw that Breakstone was right. The trail on the other side of the salt spring was plain and red, and presently they found the great stag in a thicket, lying upon his side, stone dead. Bill Breakstone was an adept at cleaning and dressing, and soon the ugly work was over. They always carried matches, and Phil quickly lighted a fire of dry sticks that burned up rapidly and that soon made a fine heap of glowing coals.

“Now.” said Breakstone, “we’ll cook and eat, then we’ll cook and eat again, then we’ll cook and eat once more.”

“And I don’t care very much whether Comanches heard the rifle shot or not,” said Phil. “It seems to me that when I eat as much as I want I can whip the whole Comanche nation.”

“I feel that way, too,” said Bill Breakstone, “but the Comanches didn’t hear. I know it in my bones. Didn’t I tell you about that streak of luck? Luck’s coming our way now, and the streak will last for awhile.”

They cut long twigs, sharpened them at the ends, and fried over the coals strips of the deer, which gave out such a rich aroma as they sputtered that the two could scarcely restrain themselves. Yet they did it, they remained white men and gentlemen, and did not guzzle.

“Phil,” said Bill, before he took a single bite, “I remember about that dinner in New Orleans you were talking of so long ago. I remember about those beautiful oysters, those splendid fish from the gulf, the gorgeous Virginia ham, the magnificent Louisiana turkey; yes, I remember all those magnificent fripperies and frummeries, but it seems to me if they were all set down before us, spread on a service of golden plate, they wouldn’t be finer than what is now awaiting us.”

“Bill,” said Phil with deep emphasis and unction, “you never spoke truer words in your life.”

“Then lay on, Macduff, and the first who cries ‘hold, enough’—well, he won’t be much of a trencherman.”

They fell to. They did not eat greedily, but they ate long and perseveringly. Strip after strip was fried over the coals, gave out its savory odor, and disappeared. Phil occasionally replenished the fire, adding to the bed of coals, but keeping down the smoke. Bill, stretching his long body on the ground and then propping himself up on his elbow, concluded that it was a beautiful world.

“Didn’t I tell you our luck would hold for awhile?” he repeated. “Since we got into the woods, things have come easy. A good bed put itself right in our way, then a deer walked up and asked to be eaten.

“We haven’t any pot, but you can use things in a metaphorical sense in order to get your rhyme. That’s what poetry is for.”

“I’m beginning to feel satiated,” said Phil.

“‘Satiated’ is a good word,” said Bill Breakstone, “but it isn’t used much on the plains. Still, I’m beginning to feel that way myself, too, and I think we’d better begin to consider the future, which is always so much bigger than the present.”

“We must find our horses.”

“Of course, and after that we must find the train, which will be our chief problem. It may be where we left it or it may have gone on, thinking that we had been killed by some outlying party of Comanches. But I don’t believe Middleton and Arenberg would move without us. They may now be somewhere in these woods looking for us.”

“Can you figure out the direction of the valley in which we left our horses?”

Breakstone studied the sun attentively.

“It’s southeast from here,” he replied, “and I fancy it’s not more than three or four miles. Two likely lads like you and me ought to find it pretty soon, and, nine chances out of ten, the horses will be there. We’ll take some of the best portions of the deer with us, and start at once.”

They chose the choicest pieces of the meat and started, now strong of body and light of heart. Phil’s own judgment about the direction agreed with Breakstone’s, and in less than an hour they saw familiar ground.

“I’m a good prophet to-day,” said Breakstone. “I’ve got the gift for a few hours at least. I predicted truly about the deer, and now I am going to predict truly about the horses. We’ll have them by the bridle inside of half an hour.”

In fifteen minutes they were in the little valley, in three minutes they found the horses grazing peacefully, and in two more minutes they caught them.

“We’ve done the work and with ten minutes to spare,” said Bill Breakstone, triumphantly, “and now, Phil, another wonderful change in our fortunes has come. If a camel is the ship of the desert, then a horse is the boat of the plains, the long boat, the jolly boat, the row boat, and all the rest of them. Now for the wagon train!”

“Now for the wagon train!” repeated Phil.

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