"If it wa'n't for the Indian war, we shouldn't have guns of our own, and so much powder and lead," said Jim Grant. "They wouldn't think so much of us, neither," said Fred Stiefel. "We wouldn't be nothing but boys: now they count on us. Didn't they set us to hold the fort, and stand watch? and didn't we kill a lot of Indians? I tell you, we'd 'a' got an awful lickin' to-day if it hadn't been for what we did this time and the other time, when the Indians tried to take the fort." "I know Mr. Armstrong wanted to lick us, and Mr. Holdness said we all ought to have a good beating; and we'd got it, if 'twa'n't for our fighting so well. I'd ruther kill Indians than pull flax," said Sam. "I'd ruther fight, and be wounded too," said Archie Crawford, "than knock sprouts off the stumps, and pull fire-weed all day." "Fightin' ain't so bad," said Sam. "I love to fight. When it's all still, just afore they begin, and the Indians come, lookin' so savage, all painted, a body feels kind of bad; but when the Indians begin to yell, and you begin to yell, and the rifles crack, and Mr. Blanchard or Mr. Honeywood sings out, 'Now we'll see who's a man and who's a mouse! fire!' then the bad feelin's all gone. Nobody wants to be a mouse: and you don't care one bit after the first of it." "If it hadn't been for the Indian war," said Archie Crawford, "my father wouldn't have been killed, and Dan's father, and Fred's." "They might have died," said Sammy. "They couldn't have died, if they hadn't been killed nor hurted." "Yes, they might: folks die 'cause they're sick." "I don't believe that nobody in this Run ever died 'thout they was killed. How can anybody die, 'cept they're killed or drownded? they can't, I know." "I tell you they can: they'll be took sick, and grown all pale, and their flesh'll all go away, and they'll go to bed, and grow weak; and bime-by they'll get so weak they can't live. I've heard my mother say how her father died. Mr. Holdness might have died. Mother says the rheumatism what he had kills folks sometimes." "I had a little sister," said Will Redmond, "that her throat all swelled, and she couldn't breathe, and she died." Archie still being incredulous, Maud Stewart said,-- "Why, Archie, there is a man buried in the graveyard that the Indians didn't kill,--Mr. Campbell. I've heard mother tell how he is all the one in this Run who ever died, and wasn't killed by Indians. Don't you know the reason Mrs. Sumerford wanted to move out of the fort was because she said that so many in a small place, all stived up, and cattle round, might breed the garrison-fever? and she told my father that would be as bad as the Indians."