“Supposing we get back at all,” said Cass. “Though we're safe enough for the present, I've no notion these devils will let us off go soon.”
“There's no great danger now,” interrupted the corporal. “I defy them, if they're not stronger than we saw them this morning, to get into the house, with six good firelocks to defend it.”
“But they may set fire to it, and burn us out,” persevered the apprehensive man with the hooked nose and the peaked chin; “I've heard of those things before.”
“Burn your granny out, Nutcrackers; look at them logs well, and say if it would'nt take hell-fire itself to burn 'em through in a month, but corporal, had'nt we better divide the ammunition. We don't know, as Cass says, what the imps are about, and what trouble they may give us yet.”
“Right, Green, there's nothing like being on the sure side, and so, my lads look to the pouches. Weston, there's a candle in that stone bottle on the shelf—light it, and put it on the table as soon as you have got that on its legs again.”
The examination was soon made. Each small cartouch box, expressly made for light excursions, contained, with the exception of the single cartridge which Collins had fired, the usual allowance of fifteen rounds. Two of these however—those of Green and Philips—had been so saturated by long immersion in the water, that they were wholly unserviceable. They were therefore emptied and dried, and the deficiency supplied from the pouches of their comrades, thus leaving about a dozen charges to each man.
“A small stock of ammunition, this, I guess, to stand a long siege on an empty belly,” drawled forth Cass.
“Just like you—always croakin',” sneered Green, “and always thinking of your belly. Why man, you've more ammunition there, I take it, than ever you'll fire away in your life.”
“And if we haven't enough,” said the corporal, going to, and taking down and shaking a powder horn, which hung suspended from the wall, that had evidently been overlooked by the Indians, “here are a dozen more charges at least, and the balls of the cartridges have not, I take it, lost their power to drill a hole into a fellow because they've been considerably well ducked. But hark! what noise is that—listen!”
A low, grating sound, as of some heavy body rubbing against the ground, was now audible at short intervals, to seemed to proceed from the southern gable—but not a voice was heard. From the moment when they had uttered their cry of disappointment, on finding the back entrance secured, the Indians had preserved the utmost silence.