"But I hope you're not so greedy as to want to live always?" said
the slender young man, who answered roll-call to Kent Edwards.

"No, but I don't want to be knocked off like a green apple, before
I'm ripe and ready."

"Better be knocked off green and unripe," said Kent, his railing
mood changing to one of sad introspection, "than to prematurely
fall, from a worm gnawing at your heart."

Jake's fright was not so great as to make him forego the opportunity
for a brutal retort:

"You mean the 'worm of the still,' I s'pose. Well, it don't gnaw
at my heart so much as at some other folkses' that I know'd."

Kent's face crimsoned still deeper, and he half raised his musket,
as if to strike him, but at that moment came the order to march,
and the regiment moved forward.

The enemy was by this time known to be near, and the men marched
in that silence that comes from tense expectation.

The day was intensely hot, and the stagnant, sultry air was perfumed
with the thousand sweet odors that rise in the West Virginia forests
in the first flush of Summer.

The road wound around the steep mountain side, through great thickets
of glossy-leaved laurel, by banks of fragrant honeysuckle, by beds