I might get him, and then again I mightn't, an' your dad is mighty anxious about the powder." "What do you think our chances are ?" I asked, man-fashion, for, after my water exploit, I was feeling very much the man.
Laban seemed to consider carefully for a space ere he replied.
"Jesse, I don't mind tellin' you we're in a damned bad hole.

But we'll get out, oh, we'll get out, you can bet your bottom dollar." "Some of us ain't going to get out," I objected.
"Who, for instance ?" he queried.
"Why, Bill Tyler, and Mrs.Grant, and Silas Dunlap, and all the rest." "Aw, shucks, Jesse--they're in the ground already.

Don't you know everybody has to bury their dead as they traipse along?
They've ben doin' it for thousands of years I reckon, and there's just as many alive as ever they was.

You see, Jesse, birth and death go hand-in-hand.

And they're born as fast as they die--faster, I reckon, because they've increased and multiplied.