An hour passed, and no Indians had yet been seen, although an occasional arrow assured the besieged party that the enemy still remained in the immediate vicinity.  They cleared away the snow at their posts, and placing dry straw to stand upon, prepared to continue the watch throughout the day and night.  Nor were they to suffer for food; for Mary, though she had not been requested so to do, ere long, to their joyful surprise, came forth with a dinner handsomely provided, which she placed before them with a smile of satisfaction playing on her lips, and entirely unmindful of the shafts that continued to fly overhead, which either pierced the wood and remained stationary, or fell expended and harmless at her feet.

Affairs thus remained till night, when the arrows ceased to fly.  There was not a cloud in the heavens, and the moon rose up in purest brightness.  A breathless stillness pervaded the air, and no sound for a great length of time could be heard but the hooting of owls on the opposite side of the river, and the howling of wolves in the flats about a mile above.

“I’m not a bit cold—­are you?” said Joe, addressing Sneak.

“Dad! keep an eye out!” replied Sneak, in a low tone.

“There’s nothing out this way but a bush.  But I declare it seems to be bigger and nigher than it was in the daytime,” said Joe.

“Don’t speak so loud,” remarked Boone, crossing to where Joe stood, and looking through at the bush.

“It’s nothing but a bush,” said Joe.

“Do you wish to kill an Indian?” inquired Boone.

“I wish they were all worms, and I could get my heel on them!” said Joe.

“That would be cruel—­but as any execution we may now do, is in our own defence, you may fire at that bush if you like,” continued Boone.

“Well,” said Joe; and taking deliberate aim, discharged his musket as directed, and was knocked down on his back in the snow by the rebound.

“Plague take the gun!” said he, recovering his feet; “but I remember it had two loads in—­I forgot it was charged, and loaded it again.  Ha! ha! ha! but what’s become of the bush?” he continued jocularly, not thinking he had fired at an Indian.

“Look for yourself,” replied Boone.

“Hang me if it ain’t gone!” exclaimed Joe.

“Ay, truly it is; but had you hit the mark, it would have fallen.  It was rather too far, however, even for your musket,” said Boone, returning to his former position.

“You are the poorest marksman that ever I saw, or you’d ’ave killed that red rascal,” said Sneak, coming up to Joe, and finding where the bush had been.

“I didn’t know it was any thing but a bush—­if I’d only known it was an Indian—­”

“You be hanged!” replied Sneak, vexed that such a capital opportunity should be lost, and petulantly resuming his own station.

An intense silence succeeded the discharge of Joe’s gun, after the tremendous report died away, in successive reverberations up and down the river, and over the low wood land opposite.  The owls and wolves were hushed; and as the watchful sentinels cast their eyes over the snow, on which the calm rays of the moon rested in repose, there was not the least indication of the presence of a dangerous foe.