“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 shell.”

“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 passed 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 embarrassed 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.