“Yes,” answered the little listener, “I knows;” and his eyes glistened with excitement.
“Well, as I was saying, I peep out, and I see a big Indian coming–”
Bub at this instinctively drew nearer the string, his gaze on Charlie.
“And I should whisper, Pull!”
Instantly Bub’s fat fist twitched the string, and a second report echoed over the prairie.
“What did you do that for?” asked his brother, much displeased. “I didn’t wish you to do it now. I was only explaining how to do it, and I want you to do it right. Don’t touch the strings till I tell you; and then, when I give the word, you’ll pull–won’t you?”
Curly-head looked as if he intended to stand by the guns.
“In that way, Bub,” continued Charlie, “we could keep off a great many Indians; I loading and firing, and you firing too, Bub. But I haven’t put that last rifle in just right;” and glancing out of the hole, as he adjusted it, he turned deathly pale, and his whispered utterance was strangely faint, as he exclaimed,–
“If there isn’t an Indian now!”
It is said by old hunters accustomed to shoot small game, however skilful in the use of fire-arms 255 they may be, that the first time they see a large animal,–a deer, for example,–such a nervous excitement seizes them, although the creature stands within a few feet of them, for an instant they cannot command themselves to fire; and when they do, they are sure to miss the object. It is not surprising, then, that Charlie was, for a moment, paralyzed. He gazed at the Indian as if fascinated, as the savage glided along, his head bent, going from the spring towards the tree, in the very path through which Charlie had carried the water, stooping to pick up something, then keeping on a few paces, then stopping and putting his ear to the ground, as if intently listening. He was within easy range of Charlie’s rifle all the time; yet the boy lifted not his finger.