So, when the pioneers within the block-house looked intently at the stockade, they saw nothing but the wall of shadow and the outline of the sharp pickets above; but, as their vision flitted along the front, they caught the faint suggestions of the figures of men standing erect and doubtless intently watching the block-house, from which the rifles of the Kentuckians had flashed but a short time before.
Whenever the moon's light was obscured, nothing but blank darkness met the eye, the line of stockades themselves vanishing from sight. Once one of the warriors moved a few steps to the left, and Jo Stinger and Ned Preston detected it.
"Why not try another shot?" asked the Colonel, when the matter was referred to.
"It is too much guess-work: nobody can take any sort of aim, when it is so dark in the block-house."
"I wonder what their purpose can be," muttered the Colonel, speaking as much to himself as to those near him.
"I knows what it am," said Blossom Brown, who had been drawn to the spot by the firing and the words he had overheard.
"You do, eh?" remarked the Colonel, looking toward him in the darkness; "what is it?"
"Dey're comin' to steal de well."
"What will they do with it, after they steal it?"
"Take it off in de woods and hide it, I s'pose."