If she had been a man, she would have been
their leader, perhaps. So she retreated at last to her favorite
refuge, the milk-house, and tried to cover her secret approval
with grumbling to herself.
There was a lull in the house. The boys, it transpired, had gone
in a body to Hartley after more cartridges, and the cloud of dust
which hovered long over the trail testified to their haste. They
returned surprisingly soon, and they would scarcely wait for
their supper before they hurried back through the garden. One
would think that they were on their way to a dance, so eager they
were.
They dug themselves trenches in various parts of the garden, laid
themselves gleefully upon their stomachs, and proceeded to
exchange, at the top of their strong, young voices, ideas upon
the subject of claim-jumping, and to punctuate their remarks with
leaden periods planted neatly and with precision in the immediate
vicinity of one of the four.
They had some trouble with Donny, because he was always jumping
up that he might yell the louder when one of the enemy was seen
to step about uneasily whenever a bullet pinged closer than
usual, and the rifles began to bark viciously now and then.
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