Such acts, it seemed to him, were quite removed from the sphere of honorable, manly fighting.
As a scout he had learned that it was wrong even to bathe in a stream whence drinking water was obtained, and at camp he had always scrupulously observed this good rule.

He felt that it was cowardly to defile the waters of a brook.

It was not a "mailed fist" at all which could do such things, but a fist dripping with poison.
And Tom Slade felt no qualm, as otherwise he might have felt, at hiding there waiting for new victims.

He was proud and thrilled to see his friend, secreted in his perch, keen-eyed and alert, guarding alone the crystal purity of this laughing, life-giving brook, as it hurried along its pebbly bed and tumbled in little gushing falls and wound cheerily around the rocks, bearing its grateful refreshment to the weary, thirsty boys who were holding the neighboring village.
"I used to think I wouldn't like to be a sniper," he said, "but now it seems different.

I saw two fellers in the village and one had a bandage on his arm and the other one who was talking to him--I heard him say a long drink of water would go good--and--I--kind of--now----" The Jersey Snipe winked at Tom and patted his rifle as a man might pat a favorite dog.
"It's good fresh water," said he..