“Nobody wants him but me, Sleepy, and I ain’t goin’ to let the little jigger go to no orphing home, y’betcha. Maybe I ain’t no fittin’ person to bring up a kid, but—oh, oh-h-h!”
Hashknife slips his rifle-barrel into a slot between two boards and then twists over almost on his shoulder, in order to look down the sights. A feller has slipped out of the doorway, thinking that we didn’t dare to expose ourselves enough to shoot.
Hashknife’s rifle cracked, and the feller’s feet slipped and he sat down hard. I don’t know where it hit him, but it made him either brave or sick, ’cause he just sets there, until a arm sticks out of the door and hauls him back inside. Then the shooting seemed to ease up.
“What do you fellers want?” yells a voice.
“This is a —— of a time to ask questions!” yells Hashknife. “Don’t stop shootin’ on our account.”
Just then a bullet nicked a piece of meat off the point of my jaw, and splatted into the wood beside my head. Before we can move, another bullet hit Hashknife’s hat.
“Behind us!” I yelps. “Look out!”
Hashknife flips off his hat and yanks his gun out of the slot.
“Look out yourself! That son-of-a-gun I knocked down has circled us.”
Willer Crick woke up to the fact that something is wrong, and they sure hammered our fort.