Glenn's brow furrowed as he considered Roan's worry about the two boys following them. "Hmmm..." he replied, giving his left ear a small pull at the same time he chewed his lip, thinking hard about the question. "His father ain't always nice either.. Ms Dotta don't like it much when he comes around. Always drinking too much and looking to start trouble. Peyton's father, I mean. Dax's ain't bad."

"Hey is that all we got, Roan? I'm still hungry," Glenn said after finishing his bread and cheese rather quickly.

Roan took another bite as Glenn said what he knew about the two cousins. It seemed they wouldn’t have to worry unless they ran away from home and being younger than Roan and Glenn, that would probably be unwise. Especially for Peyton, it didn’t sound like he’d be in the mood when the time came to come back home.

At Glenn’s whining for food, Roan said, “Fine, fine.” He’d wanted to stretch it out a bit, but he figured that for breakfast tomorrow he’d see if there were any good roots or berries around. Pulling out a bit more bread, he passed it to Glenn, thinking he’d save the jerky, since it’d last longer than the bread and cheese. Roan was actually surprisingly good at ‘saving the best for last’. He thought about how he reacted when he heard the rider approaching, remembering a story he’d heard.

Looking over to Glenn, he asked, “So, got any good stories?” There were few things Roan liked better than a well told story. He even feels like he learned to read so he could check out more stories when he had the chance.

Glenn downed the second helping of dinner almost as quickly as he had the first and pondered Roan's question about stories.

"Old man Calhoun always had good stories," he said. "He used to tell this one about getting lost in a forest... no that one was about elves or gnomes or something... getting lost in a mountain pass. And there were bandits...."

Glenn continued a tale that seemed to be about Calhoun getting caught by a group of bandits and talking his way out of it, somehow making them allies in the process. But the tale was anything but well told, as he got the details confused with other stories and often had to backtrack to correct himself once he realized he had made a mistake.

"Think we'll have any adventures like that, Roan?" Glenn asked as he got comfortable for the night. Though if his story telling skills were any indication, they'd be in serious trouble if Glenn had to talk his way out of a bad situation.

As Glenn told Calhoun’s tale, Roan listened patiently, occasionally becoming a little frustrated at the mistakes, but doing his best to hide it. Calhoun had been full of tales apparently, perhaps Roan would have had trouble keeping them straight himself. He got the gist of it at least, just enough detail to put it together. He was becoming more interested in what Calhoun had been like, but admittedly, Roan wasn’t going to be asking Glenn for another story any time soon.

Answering his question, Roan replied, “Course we’ll have adventures like that! Thing is, you don’t hear about all the boring parts in between, like now. There’s always the stuff like ‘I spent a week traveling, then...’ or ‘a few days later...’. Give it some time.”

Thinking for a second, Roan considered telling a story of his own, but he wanted to work out the more...questionable bits. That would require a bit of thinking. Glad that Glenn had stopped whining about food, he decided now would be as good a time as any to start resting. He told Glenn, “You go ahead and get some rest, I’ll keep watch. Don’t want anything to sneak up on us, you know?”

"Okay, Roan" Glenn said and rolled over onto his side, using his arm as a pillow. He was quiet for a bit, trying to fall asleep, which should have been an easy task after a day of walking, but thoughts of adventures and undiscovered treasure made sleep elusive. After a while he rolled onto his back and looked up at the star covered sky and the bright moon. Ms Dotta always told him to count something when he was having trouble falling asleep and there were plenty of stars up there to count. Very quietly, he started muttering to himself. "1...2...3...4..." He continued up to 65 before his count was replaced by deep breathing.

As Glenn rolled over and tried to sleep, Roan threw one last piece of wood on the fire before lingering; keeping his eyes and ears out for any trouble. As he waited, he had nothing but himself for company. He began thinking about the tale he was planning on sharing in exchange for Glenn’s, he wondered what might happen if he gave the unaltered version. Glenn seemed to think Roan was a good person, sure, but Roan knew that opinion didn’t hold for everyone he’d known. However, at the end of the day, Roan wasn’t the type of person to let things like that bother him, so at the end of this day, he fell asleep, just like any other. The thought of waking Glenn for watch had fled from Roan’s mind completely.

---

The next morning, the light sleeper Roan woke to a shuffling in the bushes near his side of their campsite. Rolling over, he looked around, seeing the morning dew reflecting what little daylight there was, the sun’s light not going very far early in the morning. Realizing what woke him up, he crept to his feet, reaching for his knife. Of course, his fears were alleviated as a squirrel darted out of the bush, scampering away. Returning his knife, he looked around, seeing that the fire had burned out and that Glenn still slept. It was only then that he recalled that he was supposed to have woken Glenn up. Oh well, no harm done, Roan figured. Taking his knife, he figured he’d do some gathering for breakfast, heading into the woods, eyes peeled for some food to roast or little animals. He decided against the last one in the end though: too much work to clean out...

Hearing Roan stir, Glenn rolled over and slowly sat up, then stretched his arms up over his head with a rather loud yawn, probably disturbing any wildlife nearby that Roan might have been considering for breakfast. Accustomed to rising early, the large youth lumbered to his feet as he picked up the damp traveling cloak that he'd been using as a blanket and gave it a good shake to get the debris off.

Even though the sun was barely peeking up over the horizon, Glenn couldn't help but feel excited for the day ahead and for the adventures they were bound to have. He pulled the map out of his shirt pocket, just to look at it again and make sure that nothing had happened to it overnight. Already, it was looking considerably more crumpled than it had when Glenn discovered it within the old book.

--

About the same time, and not more than a mile away, Sibley opened her eyes, then closed them again, pulling her blanket tighter about herself as she tried to ignore the rising sun. But the horse was beginning to nicker softly at her, expecting breakfast. "Alright, alright," she said out loud, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders as she got up and dug into the saddle bags to get a few handfuls of oats for him. "Best make that last, there's not much left," she told the animal.