I uttered a cry of triumph, and then clapped my hand in shame over my mouth. The water pulling at the Englishman’s body took it out into the deeper stream, and it too floated away. The zest of the chase was gone for me in an instant, and I felt only a kind of pitying horror. Never before in my life had I been assigned to work so hateful. Bucks crawled back all a-grin. I turned my back to him while he received the praise of the man in the tree. It was evident to me that nobody could cross the dead line in the face of such sharpshooters, and I hoped the British saw the fact as well as we. Our enemies must have been very hard pressed, for after a while another man tried the risk of the greensward. He came out only a few feet, and when a bullet clipped right under his feet he turned and fled back, which drew some words of scorn from Bucks, but which seemed to me to be a very wise and timely act. I thought that this would be the last trial, but Whitestone again disagreed with me. “When men are burning up with thirst and see a river full of water running by, they’ll try mighty hard to get to that river,” he said. The sergeant’s logic looked good, but for a full hour it failed. I felt sleepy, again, but was aroused by the man in the tree dropping some twigs, one of which struck me in the face. “They’re going to try it again,” he said. As I have remarked, we could see a small earthwork which the British had thrown up, and whoever tried to pass the dead line would be sure to come from that point. The man in the tree had a better view than we, and I guessed that he saw heads coming over the earthwork. Among our men was a slight bustle that told of preparation, a last look at the flints, a shoving forward for a better position. I looked at my own rifle, but I resolved that I would not allow zeal to overcome me again. I would remember Whitestone’s suggestion and fire into the air, leaving the real work to Bucks and the others, who would be glad enough to do it. I saw the flutter of a garment at the earthwork and some one came over. The man on the bough above me uttered a cry, to which I gave the echo. All the blood in me seemed to rush to my head. Kate Van Auken, carrying a large bucket in her hand, stepped upon the greensward and walked very calmly toward the river, not once turning her eyes toward the hill where she knew the sharpshooters lay. Behind her came a strapping, bare-armed Englishwoman, who looked like a corporal’s wife, and then four more women, carrying buckets or pails. Bucks raised his rifle and began to take aim. I sprang up and dashed his rifle aside. I am afraid I swore at him too. I hope I did. “What are you about, Bucks?” I cried. “Would you shoot a woman?” “Mr. Shelby,” he replied very coolly, “we’re put here to keep the British from that water, man or woman. What’s a woman’s life to the fate of a whole army? You may outrank me, but you don’t command me in this case, and I’m going to shoot.”