"They won't have any trouble in preventing us from stealing it,—that is certain," observed the Colonel, bitterly.
"Why can't we dig the well inside the block-house, as you intended?" asked Ned; "there are shovels, spades and picks, and I don't suppose it would take us a great while."
"If we are driven to it, we will make the attempt; but there is no likelihood that we will have a chance. All our attention will be required by the Indians."
"You can set Blossom to work if you wish to," said Ned Preston; "he is good for little except to cut wood and dig. If he worked steadily for two or three days, he might reach water."
Ned was in earnest with this proposition, and he volunteered to take his turn with his servant and the others; but the scheme filled Blossom with dismay.
"I neber dugged a well," he said, with a contemptuous sniff; "if I should undertook it, de well would cave in on me, and den all you folks would hab to stop fightin' de Injines and go to diggin' me out agin."
Colonel Preston did not consider the project feasible just then, and Blossom Brown was relieved from an anticipation which was anything but pleasant.
Jo Stinger was attentively watching the stockade where the figures of the Wyandot warriors were faintly seen. He was greatly mystified to understand what their object could be in exposing themselves to such risk, when, so far as he could judge, there was nothing to be gained by so doing; but none knew better than did the veteran that, brave as were these red men, they were not the ones to face a danger without the reasonable certainty of acquiring some advantage over an enemy.
"I will risk a shot anyway," he thought; "for, though I can't make much of an aim, there is a chance of doing something. As soon as the moon comes out, I will see how the varmints will stand a bullet or two."
So he waited "till the clouds rolled by," but, as he feared, the straining eye could not catch the faintest suggestion of a warrior, where several were visible only a short time before.