“Just let me get in the house and fasten the door, and I will tell you every word,” said Joe imploringly.

“Tell me now, or you shall remain in the snow all day long!” said Glenn, with a hand grasping each side of Joe’s neck.

“Oh, what shall I do?  I can’t speak!” yelled Joe, trying outright, the large tear-drops falling from his nose and chin.

“You have not lost your voice, I should say, at all events,” implied Glenn, somewhat touched with pity at his man’s unequivocal distress, though he could scarce restrain his laughter when he viewed his grotesque posture.  “What has become of your musket and hat?” he added.

“I left them both there,” said Joe, gradually becoming composed under the weight of his master.

“Where?” asked Glenn.

“At the cave-spring.”

“Well, what made you leave them there?”

“Just get off my back and I’ll tell you.  I’m getting over it now; I’m going to be mad instead of frightened,” said Joe, with real composure.

“Get up, then; but I won’t trust you yet.  You must still suffer me to hold your collar,” said Glenn.

“If you go to the cave-spring you will see a sight!”

“What kind of a sight?”

“Such a sight as I never dreamed of before!”

“Then it has been nothing but a dream this time, after all your foolery?”

“No, I’ll be shot if there was any dreaming about it,” replied Joe; and he related every thing up to the horrid discovery which caused him to retreat so precipitately, and then paused, as if dreading to revert to the subject.

“What did you find there?  Was it any thing that could injure you?”

“No,” said Joe, shaking his head solemnly.

“Why did you run, then?” demanded Glenn, impatiently.

“The truth is, I don’t know myself, now I reflect about it.  But I’d rather not tell what I saw just yet.  I was pretty considerably alarmed, wasn’t I?”

“Ridiculous!  I will not be trifled with in this manner Tell me instantly what you saw!” said Glenn, his vexation and anger overcoming his usual indulgent nature.

“I’ll tell you now—­it was a—­Didn’t you see them bushes move?” asked Joe, staring wildly at a clump of sumach bushes a few paces distant.

“What was it you saw at the cave-spring!” shouted Glenn, his face turning red.

“I—­I”—­responded Joe, his eyes still fixed on the bushes.  “It was a—­Ugh!”—­cried he, starting, as he beheld the little thicket open, and a tall man rise up, holding in his hand a bunch of dead muskrats.

“Dod speak on—­I want to hear what it was—­I’ve been laying here all this time waiting to know what great thing it was that skeered you so much.  I never laughed so in all my life as I did when he got a-straddle of you.  I was coming up to the sled, when I saw you streaking it through the vines and briers, and then I squatted down awhile to see what would turn up next.”