"I know the way," she continued eagerly. "Open the gate, let the women take the buckets—I will lead—and we can go to the spring and fill them with water. Maybe the Indians won't fire on us!"
"Lucy, child!" exclaimed her father. "I cannot think of such a thing."
Then up spoke Tom Ross, wise in the ways of the wilderness.
"Mr. Upton," he said, "the girl is right. If the women are willing to go out it must be done. It looks like an awful thing, but—if they die we are here to avenge them and die with them, if they don't die we are all saved because we can hold this fort, if we have water; without it every soul here from the oldest man down to the littlest baby will be lost."
Mr. Upton covered his face with his hands.
"I do not like to think of it, Tom," he said.
The other men waited in silence.
Lucy looked appealingly at her father, but he turned his eyes away.
"See what the women say about it, Tom," he said at last.
The women thought well of it. There was not one border heroine, but many; disregarding danger they prepared eagerly for the task, and soon they were in line more than fifty, every one with a bucket or pail in each hand. Henry Ware, looking on, said nothing. The intended act appealed to the nature within him that was growing wilder every day.