“Not the first time they won’t. I’ll be too quick for them.”
Placing the box on the chair he was tall enough to be able to get his head through the opening. As he had hoped, the fire was only about a foot away.
“Hand me that small shovel,” he ordered, as he withdrew his head.
With the shovel he soon succeeded in beating out the blaze, but as he again looked out to make sure that it was out a bullet sang past his head, making him duck back quickly.
“I told you,” Jack said, as he jumped down.
“I know, but I got the fire out, although I don’t expect it will do much good.”
“How come?” Rex asked.
“They’ll have another one going in a minute, and it’ll be pretty risky to try that stunt again, as they’ll be on the watch.”
“It seems kinder funny to me that as many times as they have shot at us not a bullet has hit. I thought that all those fellows up here were dead shots,” Rex said.
“Most of them are good shots, all right,” Bob declared, “but most of the time the light has been bad, and then I’m inclined to think that perhaps they haven’t yet shot to hit. You see, although they won’t hesitate to kill if they think their safety depends on it, they’d rather get that money without killing us if they can, and I reckon it looks to them just now as though they could.”