“What is that?” demanded Glenn, staring at the singular object before him.  The question was by no means an unnatural one, for no being in the human shape ever seemed less like a man.  The unresisting and bewildered savage looked wildly round, displaying a face as black as if he had just risen from the bottom of some infernal lake.  His tattered buckskin garments had shared the same fate in the explosion; his eyebrows, and the hair of his head were singed and crisped; and, altogether he might easily have passed for one of Pluto’s scullions.  He did not make resistance when Sneak led him forth, seeming to anticipate nothing else than an instantaneous and cruel death, and was apparently resigned to his fate.  He doubtless imagined that escape and longer life were utterly impossible, inasmuch as, to his comprehension, he was in the grasp of evil spirits.  If he had asked himself how he came thither, it could not have occurred to him that any other means than the agency of a supernatural power threw him into the hands of the foe.

“I thought I saw one of them plunging through the air over the inclosure,” said Boone, smiling.

“Hanged if I didn’t think so too,” said Joe, who had at length returned to gaze at the captive, when he ascertained that he was entirely meek and inoffensive.

“Have you got over your fright already?” asked Sneak.

“What fright?” demanded Joe, with affected surprise.

“Now, can you say you weren’t skeered?”

“Ha! ha! ha!  I believe you really thought I was frightened.  Why, you dunce, you!  I only ran in to tell Miss Mary about it.”

“Now go to bed.  Don’t speak to me agin to night,” said Sneak, indignantly.

“I’ll go and get something to eat,” said Joe, retreating into the house.

“Tell Roughgrove to come here,” said Boone, speaking to Joe.

“I will,” said Joe, vanishing through the door.

When the old ferryman came out, Boone requested him (he being the most familiar with the Osage language,) to ask the savage by what means he was enabled to get inside of the inclosure.  Roughgrove did his bidding; and the Indian replied that the Great Spirit threw him over the palisade, because he once killed a friend of Boone’s at the cave-spring, and was now attempting to kill another.

“Why did you wish to kill us?” asked Roughgrove.

The Indian said it was because they thought Glenn had a great deal of money, many fire weapons, and powder and bullets, which they (the savages) wanted.

“Was it right to rob the white man of these things, and then to murder him?” continued Roughgrove.

The savage replied that the prophet (Raven) had told the war-party it was right.  Besides, they came a long and painful journey to get (Glenn’s) goods, and had suffered much with cold in digging under the snow; several of their party had been killed and wounded, and he thought they had a good right to every thing they could get.