Wild Western Scenes Part 33

"Well, what if it is? what are you waking me up for?" replied Joe, turning over on his rude pallet.

"Why, I'm going home."

"Well, clear out them."

"But you'll have to get up and shut the gate after me"'

"Plague take it all, I believe you're just trying to spoil my nap!"

said Joe, much vexed.

"No I ain't, Joe; I'm in earnest, indeed I am," continued Sneak; "bekaise I hain't been inside of my house, now, for three or four days, and who knows but the dod--mean the--Indians have been there and stole all my muskrat skins?"

"If they have, then there's no use in looking for them now."

"If they have, dod--I mean, _burn_ me if I don't foller em to the other end of creation but I'll have 'em back agin. But I ain't much afeard that they saw my house--they might rub agin it without knowing it was a house."

"That's a pretty tale," said Joe, now thoroughly awakened, and staring incredulously in his companion's face.

"It's a fact."

"Whereabouts is your house?"

"Why, it's in the second valley we crossed when we went after the wolves on the island."

"Then your skins are gone," said Joe, "for the Indians have been in that valley."

"I know they was there well enough," said Sneak; "but didn't I say they couldn't find the house, even if they was to scratch their backs agin it?"

"What kind of a house is it?"

"'Spose you come along and see," said Sneak, groping about in the dim twilight for his cap, and the gun Glenn bad given him.

"I should like to see it, just out of curiosity," replied Joe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I will pray for his recovery," said Mary, bowing down at the foot of the bed.--P. 186]

"Then go along with Sneak," said Glenn, who approached the fire to prepare some medicine; "it is necessary that every thing should be quiet and still here."

"If you'll help me to feed and water the horses. Sneak, I'll go home with you," said Joe. Sneak readily agreed to the proposition, and by the time it was quite light, and yet before the sun rose, the labour was accomplished, and they set out together for the designated valley.

Their course was somewhat different from that pursued when in quest of the wolves, for Sneak's habitation was about midway between the river and the prairie, and they diverged in a westerly direction. But their progress was slow During the night there had been a change in the atmosphere, and a constant breeze from the south had in a great measure softened the snow-crust, so that our pedestrians frequently broke through.

"This is not the most agreeable walking I ever saw," said Joe, breaking through and tumbling down on his face.

"That's jest as much like swimming as walking," said Sneak, smiling at the blunder of his companion.

"Smash it, Sneak," continued Joe, rising up with some difficulty, "I don't half like this breaking-through business."

"You must walk lighter, and then you won't break through," said Sneak; "tread soft like I do, and put your feet down flat. I hain't broke in once--" But before the sentence was uttered, Sneak had broken through himself, and stood half-submerged in the snow.

"Ha! ha! ha! you musn't count your chickens before they're hatched,"

said Joe, laughing; "but you may score one, now you have broken the sh.e.l.l."

"I got in that time," said Sneak, now winding through the bushes with much caution, as if it were truly in his power to diminish the weight of his body by a peculiar mode of walking.

"This thaw 'll be good for one thing, any how," said Joe, after they had progressed some time in silence.

"What's that?" asked Sneak.

"Why, it 'll keep the Indians away; they can't travel through the slush when the crust is melted off."

"That's as true as print," replied Sneak; and if none of 'em follered us back to the settlement, we needn't look for 'em agin till spring."

"I wonder if any of them _did_ follow us?" asked Joe, pausing abruptly.

"How can anybody tell till they see 'em?" replied Sneak. "What're you stopping for?"

"I'm going back," said Joe.

"Dod--you're a fool--that's jest what you are. Hain't We got our guns?

and if there _is_ any about, ain't they in the bushes close to Mr.

Glenn's house? and hain't we pa.s.sed through 'em long ago? But I don't keer any thing about your cowardly company--go back, if you want to,"

said Sneak, striding onward.

"Sneak, don't go so fast. I haven't any notion of going back," said Joe, springing nimbly to his companion's side.

"I believe you're afeard to go back by yourself," said Sneak, laughing heartily.

"Pshaw, Sneak, I don't think any of 'em followed us, do you?"

continued Joe, peering at the bushes and trees in the valley, which they were entering.

"No," said Sneak; "I only wanted to skeer you a bit."

"I've killed too many savages to be scared by them now," said Joe, carelessly striding onward.

"What was you a going back for, if you wasn't skeered?"

"I wonder what always makes you think I'm frightened when I talk of going into the house! Sneak, you're _always_ mistaken. I wasn't thinking about myself--I only wanted to put Mr. Glenn on his guard."

"Then what made you tell that wapper for, the other night, about cutting that Indian's throat?"

"How do you know it was a wapper?" asked Joe, somewhat what embarra.s.sed by Sneak's home-thrust.

"Bekaise, don't I know that I cut his juggler-vein myself? Didn't the blood gush all over me? and didn't he fall down dead before he had time to holler?" continued Sneak, with much warmth and earnestness.

"Sneak," said Joe, "I've no doubt you thought he was dead--but then you must know it's nearly as hard to kill a man as a cat. You might have been mistaken; every body is liable to be deceived--even a person's eyes deceive him sometimes. I don't pretend to say that I haven't been mistaken before now, myself. It _may_ be possible that I was mistaken about the Indian as well as you--I might have just _thought_ I saw him move. But I was there longer than you, and the inference is that I didn't stand as good a chance to be deceived."

"Well, I can't answer all that," said Sneak; "but I'll swear I felt my knife grit agin his neck-bone."