I could not see because of the board, but I guessed that the man carried a bucket, or pail, in one hand. In truth I was right, for presently a corner of the pail appeared, and it was struck instantly by a bullet from the rifle of the man in the tree.
“At any rate, we’ve sprung a leak in his pail for him,” said Whitestone.
I began to take much interest in the matter. Not intending it, I felt like a hunter in pursuit of a wary animal. My scruples were forgotten for the moment. I found myself sighting along the barrel of my rifle seeking a shot. The Englishman had ceased for me to be a human being like myself. I caught a glimpse of a red-coat sleeve at the edge of the board and would have fired, but as my finger touched the trigger it disappeared and I held back. Whitestone was at my shoulder, the same eagerness showing on his face. The man in the tree had squirmed like a snake far out on the bough, and was seeking for a shot over the top of the board.
The Englishman trailed himself and his protecting board along, and was within a yard of the water. Over the earthwork at the edge of the British camp the men were watching him. His friends were as eager for his success as we were to slay him. It was a rivalry that incited in us a stronger desire to reach him with the lead. In such a competition a man’s life becomes a very small pawn. For us the Englishmen had become a target, and nothing more.
Bucks was the most eager of us. He showed his teeth like a wolf.
The Englishman reached the water and stooped over to fill his pail. Bending, he forgot himself and thrust his head beyond the board. With a quickness that I have never seen surpassed, Bucks threw up his rifle and fired. The Englishman fell into the water as dead as a stone, and, his board and his pail falling too, floated off down the stream.
I uttered a cry of triumph, and then clapped my hand in shame over my mouth. The water pulling at the Englishman’s body took it out into the deeper stream, and it too floated away. The zest of the chase was gone for me in an instant, and I felt only a kind of pitying horror. Never before in my life had I been assigned to work so hateful.
Bucks crawled back all a-grin. I turned my back to him while he received the praise of the man in the tree. It was evident to me that nobody could cross the dead line in the face of such sharpshooters, and I hoped the British saw the fact as well as we.
Our enemies must have been very hard pressed, for after a while another man tried the risk of the greensward. He came out only a few feet, and when a bullet clipped right under his feet he turned and fled back, which drew some words of scorn from Bucks, but which seemed to me to be a very wise and timely act.
I thought that this would be the last trial, but Whitestone again disagreed with me.