“I fear that eating will injure you,” remarked Mary, at length.

“Never fear,” replied Joe.  “When a sick person has a good appetite, it’s a sure sign he’s getting better.”

“If you think so you can eat as much as you please,” said Mary; “and you needn’t hide any thing from me.”

Joe felt a degree of shame in being so palpably detected, but his appetite soon got the better of his scruples, and he gratified the demands of his stomach without reserve.

“But what did Mr. Boone say?” asked he, peeping out.

“He says he thinks there is no danger.  But the Indians are now within a few feet of the palisade, and the explosion is about to take place.”

CHAPTER IX.

Sneak skills a sow that “was not all a swine”—­The breathless suspense—­The match in readiness—­Joe’s cool demeanour—­The match ignited—­Explosion of the mine—­Defeat of the savages—­The captive—­His liberation—­The repose—­The kitten—­Morning.

“Don’t you think I know who you are, and what you’re after?” said Sneak, as he observed a large black sow, or what seemed to be one, rambling about on the snow within a hundred paces of him.  “If that ain’t my sow!  She’s gone, that’s dead sure; and if I don’t pepper the red rascal that killed her I wish I may be split.  That Indian ’ll find I’m not such a fool as he took me for.  Just wait till he gits close enough.  I ain’t to be deceived by my own sow’s dead skin, with a great big Osage in it, nohow you can fix it.”  Sneak’s conjecture was right.  The Indian that Joe had killed was a chief, and the apparent sow was nothing more than a savage enveloped in a swine’s skin.  The Indian, after reconnoitering the premises with some deliberation, evidently believed that his stratagem was successful, and at length moved in the direction of his dead comrade, with the manifest intention of bearing the body away.

“I’ll let you have it now!” said Sneak, firing his rifle, when the seeming sow began to drag the fallen chief from the field.  The discharge took effect; the savage sprang upright and endeavoured to retreat in the manner that nature designed him to run; but he did not go more than a dozen paces before he sank down and expired.

“That’s tit for tat, for killing my sow,” said Sneak, gazing at his postrate foe.

“Come here, Sneak,” said Boone, from the opposite side of the inclosure.

“There was but one, and I fixed him,” said Sneak, when they asked him how many of the enemy were in view when he fired.

“They heard the gun,” said Glenn, applying his ear to the chink, and remarking that the Indians had suddenly ceased to work under the snow.

“Be quiet,” said Boone; “they will begin again in a minute or two.”

“They’re at it a’ready,” said Sneak, a moment after, and very soon they were heard again, more distinctly than ever, cutting away with increased rapidity.