“They will,” he replied. “They must have water, and maybe they don’t know even yet what kind of riflemen we have.”
Whitestone was right. In a half hour a man appeared protecting his body with a heavy board as long as himself. He moved with slowness and awkwardness, but two or three bullets fired into the board seemed to make no impression.
“At any rate, if he reaches the river and gets back all right it’s too slow a way to slake the thirst of many,” said Whitestone in the tone of a philosopher.
Bucks’s face puffed out with anger.
“They mustn’t get a drop!” he said with the freedom of a backwoodsman. “We’re to keep ’em from it; that’s what we’re here for.”
The man looked fierce in his wrath and I did not reprove him, for after all he was right, though not very polite.
The man in the tree fired, and a tiny patch of red cloth flew into the air. The bullet had cut his clothes, but it could not reach the man, who continued to shamble behind his board toward the river.
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to stop him,” I said to Bucks.
Bucks had crawled to the edge of the hill and was watching with the ferocity and rancor of a savage for a chance to shoot. Often I think that these men who live out in the forests among the savages learn to share their nature.