From: Wreede <ba...@cw...> - 2009-12-23 17:50:19
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Ep within five minutes, but he was never more wide awake in all his life than he was two hours after he had lain down with the Indian blanket wrapped about him, and his face toward the camp-fire. During that period, so far as he was able to see, the Indian had not moved so much as a muscle, and Jack himself had done very little more. Lying on his right side, with his arm doubled under him for a pillow, the cumbrous blanket enclosing him from head to foot, an irregular opening in front of his face allowed him to peer through the folds at the camp-fire, the oak, and the chieftain. The last still sat leaning slightly backward, with his shoulders against the trunk, his arms folded over his knees, while he seemed to be gazing off into vacancy. The heels of his moccasins remained close against the thighs, so that the form of the Indian bore quite a resemblance to the letter N. The flickering light from the camp-fire disclosed as it did at first, the side and profile of the chieftain. Gradually the flames sank lower and there came moments when the sentinel was scarcely visible. Then, all at once, the fire would flare up for a few seconds and the figure would be in brighter relief than before. Again the eyes of Jack would rebel against the extreme tension to which they were subjected. The Indian, instead of remaining with his back against the oak, would seem to be hitching forward and upward in the most grotesque fashion. After bumping about in the air for a time, he would sink, still bumping, to the ground, where he would hitch backward to his place by the tree. Then the latter, instead of standing as motionless as a rock, showed signs of restlessness. It would begin by swaying back and forth until it too was waltz |