“You’re, a purty feller, to watch with an empty gun, now ain’t you?  Never mind blowing in her—­run down a cartridge as quick as you kin; it makes no odds how much you have in; a big noise will do as much good as any thing else,” said Sneak, hurriedly, evidently expecting to see the savage enemy every moment, while Joe did his bidding, asserting all the time that he believed his musket was already loaded, and expressing a decided dislike to being kicked over every day from overcharging.

As Boone predicted, but a very short time elapsed before a series of startling and frightful yells were heard below, which were answered by similar horrid sounds above.  Joe first ran towards Boone and Glenn, and then sprang back to his place at the side of Sneak, fully convinced there were no means of retreat, and, being effectually cornered, at length evinced an ardent desire to fire.  When the yells died away in the distance, a flight of arrows from the north south poured upon the besieged party.  Many of them pierced the outer side of the palisade, while others, flying over, penetrated the opposite timbers, and quivered above the heads of the men; and some rattled against the top of the house, (the snow having melted from the roof,) and fell harmless to the earth.

There having been no shot yet fired in the direction whence the arrows came, (for such was the order of Boone,) the savages, emboldened by the absence of any demonstrations of resistance, and thinking their foes were shut up in the house, or killed by their numberless shafts, charged upon the premises simultaneously from both sides, shooting their arrows and yelling as they came.  When they had approached within a hundred paces of the inclosure, Boone and Sneak fired with deadly aim at the foremost of the party, and the next moment Glenn followed the example, while Boone reloaded his gun.

“Now fire!” exclaimed Sneak, shaking Joe by the shoulder, having seen the savages pause when one of their party uttered the death-howl and fell.

“Here goes!” said Joe, pulling the trigger and falling over on his back in the snow from the rebound, for the musket had been truly twice charged.

“Split me if you didn’t accidentally throw a handful of bullets among their legs that crack!” said Sneak, observing the now discomfited and retreating Indians, as they endeavoured to bear off their wounded, and then firing on them again himself as they vanished down the valley.  The like result was witnessed above, and again in a very short time there was not a savage to be seen.

“What’s the matter?  Why don’t you get up?” asked Sneak turning to Joe, who still remained prostrate on the ground.

“My mouth’s bleeding—­I don’t know but I’m wounded.  Didn’t an arrow come through the hole when I was shooting?” asked Joe, rising partially up and spitting out a quantity of blood on the snow.

“It was nothing but the gun kicking you like it did in the bear hunt.  If it was an arrow you must have swallered it, for I don’t see the shaft.  But maybe you did—­you’re sech a gormandizer,” said Sneak.