“What do you think our chances are?” I asked, man-fashion, for, after my water exploit, I was feeling very much the man.
Laban seemed to consider carefully for a space ere he replied.
“Jesse, I don’t mind tellin’ you we’re in a damned bad hole.
But we’ll get out, oh, we’ll get out, you can bet your bottom dollar.”
“Some of us ain’t going to get out,” I objected.
“Who, for instance?” he queried.
“Why, Bill Tyler, and Mrs. Grant, and Silas Dunlap, and all the rest.”
“Aw, shucks, Jesse—they’re in the ground already.
Don’t you know everybody has to bury their dead as they traipse along?
They’ve ben doin’ it for thousands of years I reckon, and there’s just as many alive as ever they was.
You see, Jesse, birth and death go hand-in-hand.
And they’re born as fast as they die—faster, I reckon, because they’ve increased and multiplied.
Now you, you might a-got killed this afternoon packin’ water.
But you’re here, ain’t you, a-gassin’ with me an’ likely to grow up an’ be the father of a fine large family in Californy.
They say everything grows large in Californy.”
This cheerful way of looking at the matter encouraged me to dare sudden expression of a long covetousness.
“Say, Laban, supposin’ you got killed here—”
“Who?—me?” he cried.
“I’m just sayin’ supposin’,” I explained.
“Oh, all right then.
Go on.
Supposin’ I am killed?”
“Will you give me your scalps?”
“Your ma’ll smack you if she catches you a-wearin’ them,” he temporized.
“I don’t have to wear them when she’s around.
Now if you got killed, Laban, somebody’d have to get them scalps.
Why not me?”
“Why not?” he repeated. “That’s correct, and why not you?
All right, Jesse.
I like you, and your pa.
The minute I’m killed the scalps is yourn, and the scalpin’ knife, too.
And there’s Timothy Grant for witness.
Did you hear, Timothy?”
Timothy said he had heard, and I lay there speechless in the stifling trench, too overcome by my greatness of good fortune to be able to utter a word of gratitude.
I was rewarded for my foresight in going to the trench.
Another general attack was made at sundown, and thousands of shots were fired into us.
Nobody on our side was scratched.
On the other hand, although we fired barely thirty shots, I saw Laban and Timothy Grant each get an Indian.
Laban told me that from the first only the Indians had done the shooting.
He was certain that no white had fired a shot.
All of which sorely puzzled him.
The whites neither offered us aid nor attacked us, and all the while were on visiting terms with the Indians who were attacking us.
Next morning found the thirst harsh upon us.
I was out at the first hint of light.
There had been a heavy dew, and men, women, and children were lapping it up with their tongues from off the wagon-tongues, brake-blocks, and wheel-tyres.
There was talk that Laban had returned from a scout just before daylight; that he had crept close to the position of the whites; that they were already up; and that in the light of their campfires he had seen them praying in a large circle.
Also he reported from what few words he caught that they were praying about us and what was to be done with us.
“May God send them the light then,” I heard one of the Demdike sisters say to Abby Foxwell.
“And soon,” said Abby Foxwell, “for I don’t know what we’ll do a whole day without water, and our powder is about gone.”
Nothing happened all morning.