us! 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."

"Ha! ha! ha! is it you, Sneak? I thought you was an Indian! Come on,
I'll tell now. _It was a man's moccasin_!" said Joe, in a low,
mysterious tone.

"And you ran in that manner from an old moccasin!" said Glenn,
reproachfully.

"But there was a _foot_ in it!" continued Joe.

"A _he_ man's foot?" inquired Sneak, quickly turning to Joe.

"How could I tell whether it was a he man's foot, or a female woman's,
as you call them?" replied Joe.

"Are you sure it was a human being's foot?" demanded Glenn.

"Well, I never saw any other animal but a man wear a buckskin
moccasin!" replied Joe.

"An Irishman can't tell any thing right, nohow you can fix it," said
Sneak.

"They can't tell how you make wooden nutmegs," retorted Joe.

"Come," said Glenn, "we will go and examine for ourselves."

The party set off in a brisk walk, and soon reached the scene of Joe's
alarm. Sure enough, there was the moccasin, and a man's foot in it!

"It's somebody, after all," said Sneak, giving the frozen foot a kick.

"Ain't you ashamed to do that?" said Joe, knitting his brows.

"He's nothing more than a stone, now. Why didn't he holler when you
stuck your knife into him?" replied Sneak.

"Dig him up, that we may see who he is," said Glenn.

"I'd rather not touch him," said Joe.

"You're a fool!" said Sneak. "Stand off, and let me at him--I'll soon
see who he is." Sneak threw down his maskrats, and with his spear and
knife soon extricated the body, which he handled as unceremoniously as
he