Buz, trudging along in the dust, glanced at the little cripple on the donkey's back with an inward shiver.
"What a dreadful lot his must be," he thought. "How glad I am that I am not like he is!"
It was not very long till the shyness began to wear off, and Joel found that the stupid shepherd lad had a very busy brain under his shock of tangled hair. His eyes might squint, but they knew just where to look in the bushes for the little hedge-sparrow's nest. They could take unerring aim, too, when he sent the smooth sling-stones whizzing from the sling he carried.
"How far can you shoot with it?" asked Joel.
For answer Buz looked all around for some object on which to try his skill; then he pointed to a hawk slowly circling overhead. Joel watched him fit a smooth pebble into his sling; he had no thought that the boy could touch it at such a distance. The stone whizzed through the air like a bullet, and the bird dropped several yards ahead of them.
"See!" said Buz, as he ran to pick it up, and display it proudly. "I struck it in the head."
Joel looked at him with increasing respect. "That must have been the kind of sling that King David killed the giant with," he said, handing it back after a careful examination.
"King David!" repeated Buz, dully, "seems to me I have heard of him, sometime or other; but I don't know about the giant."
"Why where have you been all your life?" cried Joel, in amazement. "I thought everybody knew about that. Did you never go to a synagogue?"