It was a child crying. Dan said, “Well, hell—” He rose and started forward. Bart made a queer noise in his throat; he was pointing. In the low sun’s glare stood a fat man, outlined against the yellow fields. He was at the old box well, fifty yards away, winding the windlass. He looked crumpled and straw was sticking all over his clothes.

“Quagger,” Bale said. Before he thought, he had taken a step and was clear of the bushes. A short brown furrow smoked in front of him: he stopped. McKosh was dragging at his trousers. “No sense in two of you getting shot! He’s got the water, not you.”

Dan cried, “Where in damnation did he come from?”

“How’d I know? Out of the barn or woods or somewheres. Up from hell with the rest of his stripe—”

Elmer Quagger walked across the open yard. There were barns and fences at the south end of the property, but they lay well below the sights of the Federal rifles. You could hear the angry pak, pak of the marksmen, round little beats against the immense storm in the south. Quagger walked carefully, holding the dripping bucket far out at his side and balancing it with an extended left hand. A window went to pieces, on the other side of the house. The bullets sank through the shrubbery, they kicked up from rocks bordering the path. They’re bound to get him, grunted McKosh. You kids stay behind that tree.

The sun was spoiled by a landscape of powder smoke hanging in front of it, but somehow its level stare came through and rested vengefully on the man with the pail … He stopped for a moment and looked back at the well; some water splashed over the bucket’s rim; he went on, groping for the cellar door. Then the corner of the house hid him.

Bart McKosh rolled over and looked up at Dan. “Some folks are born fortunate. If that’d been me I’d a’ had a dozen holes in my gizzard.” After a time the front door of the house opened, and closed quickly behind Elmer Quagger. He stood on the stoop, gazing toward the men in front. The one-legged veteran cried, “Well, come on if you’re coming! Keep the house behind you and you’re safe.” Quagger walked down the path and through the gate.

Masked by the long barricade of green, Bale crept to meet him. “You’re not hit?” He asked.

The fat man shook his round head. He looked at Dan with frightened eyes. His voice seemed as flat and mushy as ever. “No, sir. For a minute I thought they’d shot the pail, though.”

That was a fool thing to do. McKosh called with grudging admiration. Quagger didn’t look at him. He said, haltingly, “What you got on your mind, Bale?”

“I guess you know,” Dan said.