I remembered the sundown attack of the night before, and anticipated it this time by crawling to the trench before sunset.  I crept into a place alongside of Laban.  He was busy chewing tobacco, and did not notice me.  For some time I watched him, fearing that when he discovered me he would order me back.  He would take a long squint out between the wagon wheels, chew steadily a while, and then spit carefully into a little depression he had made in the sand.

“How’s tricks?” I asked finally.  It was the way he always addressed me.

“Fine,” he answered.  “Most remarkable fine, Jesse, now that I can chew again.  My mouth was that dry that I couldn’t chew from sun-up to when you brung the water.”

Here a man showed head and shoulders over the top of the little hill to the north-east occupied by the whites.  Laban sighted his rifle on him for a long minute.  Then he shook his head.

“Four hundred yards.  Nope, I don’t risk it.  I might get him, and then again I mightn’t, an’ your dad is mighty anxious about the powder.”

“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?”