"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."
No one of the children had ever known one of their number to die of disease. All their knowledge respecting the matter was obtained from their parents; and nothing could more strikingly illustrate the perilous life the settlers led than the fact that Archie Crawford considered death by the rifle, tomahawk, or some violence, the natural end of mankind. He had never been out of the Run; there was not an old person there, and he had not the least conception of death by decay of nature.
Just below the scene of their mishap, the stream was so crooked that it resembled very much a bean-vine encircling a pole. Here they found the greater portion of the bladders, which they valued somewhat.