“I’m recovered now,” said Joe, rising up and assuming an air of importance.

“What have you been doing?” asked Glenn.

“I’ve been doing as much as any of you, I’ll be bound,” replied Joe, very gravely.

“Well, what have you done?” repeated Glenn.

“I’ve been fighting the last half hour, as hard as anybody ever fought in this world.  Only look at the stabs in that Indian!” said he, pointing to the savage.

“Why, you scoundrel!  Sneak killed this Indian,” said Glenn.

“Sneak thought he did,” replied Joe, “but he only wounded him.  After a while he got up and clinched me by the throat, and we had it over and over on the snow, till we both got so exhausted we couldn’t do any thing.  When we rested, we went at it again, and it hasn’t been five minutes since I stuck my knife in his breast.  When he fell, I stuck him four or five times, and then fainted myself.”

“Here is a wound in the savage’s breast,” said Glenn.

“But here’s another in the throat,” said Boone, showing where the arteries had been severed by Sneak.

“Joe,” said Glenn, “you must abandon this habit of lying, if indeed it is not a portion of your nature.”

“Hang it all, I ain’t lying—­I know Sneak did cut his throat, but he didn’t cut it deep—­I cut it deeper, myself, after the Indian got up again!” persisted he.

The party hastily glanced at the four or five dead savages under the trees, that had fallen victims to their fire, and then returned to the sled.  Mary was placed beside the captive chief, and they set out on their return, well satisfied with the result of the expedition.

CHAPTER XIII.

The return—­The young chief in confinement—­Joe’s fun—­His reward—­The ring—­A discovery—­William’s recognition—­Memories of childhood—­A scene—­Roughgrove’s history—­The children’s parentage.

The party on their return did not travel so rapidly as they had advanced.  They moreover halted in a grove which they espied about midnight, and finding a spreading tree that had entirely shielded a small space of ground from the snow, they kindled a fire, arranged their robes, and reposed a few hours.  The captive chief was still sullen and unresisting.  He was suffered to recline in the sled enveloped in skins, with his hands and feet yet bound, and an extra cord passed round his body, the end of which Sneak held in his hand while he slept.  When daylight appeared, they set forward again in a moderate pace, and arrived at Glenn’s domicil at evening twilight.  The neighbours that Sneak had enlisted departed for their homes, and Boone and Col.  Cooper, after bidding our hero, Roughgrove, and Mary, a hearty adieu, without entering the inclosure, recrossed the river to their own settlement.