"Don't pull the trigger, until you can look down the sights at a vital spot." A few feet away from them, peering over a log and with his rifle ever thrust forward was Mr.Pennypacker, a schoolmaster, a graduate of a college, an educated and refined man, but bearing his part in the dark and terrible wilderness conflict that often left no wounded.
The stillness was now so deep that even the scouts could hear no sound in front.

The savage army seemed to have melted away, into the air itself, and for full five minutes they lay, waiting, waiting, always waiting for something that they knew would come.

Then rose the fierce quavering war cry poured from hundreds of throats, and the savage horde, springing out of the forests and thickets, rushed upon them.
Dark faces showed in the sunlight, brown figures, naked save for the breechcloth, horribly painted, muscles tense, flashed through the undergrowth.

The wild yell that rose and fell without ceasing ran off in distant echoes among the hills.

The riflemen of Kentucky, lying behind trees and hillocks, began to fire, not in volleys, not by order, but each man according to his judgment and his aim, and many a bullet flew true.
A sharp crackling sound, ominous and deadly, ran back and forth in the forest.