Then, in a day or two, a squad of soldiers would come up, and camp at my spring for a while.

They used to send soldiers to guard every water hole in the country so the renegades couldn't get water.

After a while, from not being bothered none, I got thinking I wasn't worth while with them.
Me and Johnny Hooper were pecking away at the old Virginia mine then.
We'd got down about sixty feet, all timbered, and was thinking of cross-cutting.

One day Johnny went to town, and that same day I got in a hurry and left my gun at camp.
I worked all the morning down at the bottom of the shaft, and when I see by the sun it was getting along towards noon, I put in three good shots, tamped 'em down, lit the fusees, and started to climb out.
It ain't noways pleasant to light a fuse in a shaft, and then have to climb out a fifty-foot ladder, with it burning behind you.

I never did get used to it.