“A hundred devils! he’ll bring robbers to us right away.”
“Who was watching him?”
“Biloüs.”
“I went with him to water our horses,” said Biloüs, explaining. “I ordered him to draw the water, and held the horses myself.”
“And what? Did he jump into the well?”
“No, Sergeant, but between the logs, of which there are many near the well, and into the stump-holes. I let the horses go; for though they scattered there are others here, and sprang after him, but I fell into the first hole. It was night,—dark; the scoundrel knows the place, and ran away. May the pest strike him!”
“He will bring those devils here to us,—he’ll bring them. May the thunderbolts split him!”
The sergeant stopped, but after a while said,—
“We will not lie down; we must watch till morning. Any moment a crowd may come.”
And giving an example to the others, he took his place on the threshold of the cabin with a musket in his hand. The soldiers sat near him talking in an undertone, listening sometimes to learn if in the night sounds of the pine-woods the tramp and snort of coming horses could reach them.