“You don't want it any more than we do, and you're not any more bound to have it than we are.”
The colonel hesitated a moment, and then, influenced by a generous impulse, said:
“If you won't fire, we won't.”
The tall, elderly Southerner, evidently a colonel, also said:
“It's a fair proposition, sir. My men have been working so hard the last two days licking you Yanks that they're plum' burnt up with thirst.”
“I don't admit the licking, although it's obvious that you've gained the advantage so far, but is it agreed that we shall have a truce for a quarter of an hour?”
“It is, sir; the truce of the water, and may we drink well! Come on, boys!”
Colonel Winchester gave a similar order to his men, and each side rose from the thickets, and made a rush for the brook. It was a beautiful little stream, the most beautiful in the world just then to Dick and his friends. Clear and cold, the color of silver in the moonlight, it rushed down from the mountains. On one side knelt the men in blue, and on the other the men in gray, and the pure water was like the elixir of heaven to their parched and burning throats.
Dick drank long, and then as he raised his face from the stream he saw opposite him a tall, lean youth, evidently from the far South, Louisiana perhaps, a lad with a tanned face and a wide mouth stretched in a friendly grin.
“Tastes good, doesn't it, Yank?” he said.