When Jo Stinger passed within the stockade, he fixed the direction in which lay the well, and then began advancing toward it. The result of this venture proved again, how often the most careful preparation is defeated by some simple obstruction against which a child ought to have guarded.
"I must be pretty near the spot," thought Jo, when he had groped vaguely for some distance; "I can't imagine what the varmints can be doin' here, but they've got some plan on foot which I'm bound——"
At this instant, with a shock which made his hair fairly rise on end, he stepped directly into the well and went down!
The rickety inclosure of slabs, with the crank and windlass, had been removed by the Wyandots, so that in case any of the garrison ventured out, under cover of darkness, to get water, they would be unable to do so.
The theft of the curb, bucket, and appliances, shut off the supply from that source as utterly as though it had never existed. And yet, not a single member of the garrison, knowing as they did that the Wyandots were carrying out some design, suspected what their real purpose was.
Providence alone saved Jo Stinger from an ignominious end, for had he gone to the bottom of the well, the Indians could not have failed to discover it, and they would have carried out their own will concerning him.
But the life of peril which Jo had led so many years, greatly developed a certain readiness and presence of mind natural to him; but it was probably the instinctive desire to catch himself, which led him on the instant to place the gun in his left hand in a horizontal position. The diameter of the well was much less than the length of the old-fashioned flint-lock rifle; and thus it came about that muzzle and stock caught firmly, and Jo was suspended in the middle of the opening by one hand. Hastily shoving his knife back in his girdle, he seized the barrel with both hands and easily drew himself from his dangerous position. Then he took out his knife again and indulged in an expression of opinion concerning his performances of the last twenty-four hours.
This opinion it is not necessary to place on record: the reader need not be told that it was the reverse of complimentary, and that it would have hardly been safe for any one else to repeat the same vigorous comments in the presence of Jo himself.
He was not without gratitude for his delivery from the consequences of his own carelessness, but he was exasperated beyond expression by the stupidity which had seemed to brood over the counsels of the garrison from the first and to direct everything done.
While a prey to this gnawing chagrin, he suddenly became aware that one of the Wyandots was at his elbow again.