ings of this world, where mortals are
only permitted to abide but a brief space; and a hearty repentance of
past errors, and a firm resolve to obey the requisitions of the
Omnipotent in future, were in that hour conceived and engraven
indelibly upon his heart.

"Mr. Boone--Mr. Boone--Mr. Boone!" cried Joe, softly.

"Dod! don't make sich a fuss," said Sneak.

"Be silent," whispered Boone, gliding to Joe, and gazing out on the
snow, where he beheld about twenty savages standing erect and
motionless, not eighty paces distant.

"I came within an ace of shooting," said Joe, "before I thought of
what you had said. I pulled the trigger with all my might before I
remembered that you said I musn't shoot till you told me, but as good
luck would have it, my musket wasn't cocked." Boone went to each of
the other loopholes, and after scrutinizing every side very closely,
he directed Sneak and Glenn to abandon their posts and join him at
Joe's stand, for the purpose of discharging a deadly volley at the
unsuspecting foe.

"Does it not seem cruel to spill blood in this manner?" whispered
Glenn, when he viewed the statue-like forms of the unconscious
Indians.

"Had you witnessed the barbarous deeds that _I_ have seen _them_
perform--had you beheld the innocent babe ruthlessly butchered--your
children--your friends maimed, tomahawked, scalped, _burned_ before
your eyes--could you know the hellish horrors they are _now_
meditating--you would not entertain much pity for them," said Boone,
in a low tone, evidently moved by terrible memories, the precise
nature of which the one addressed could not understand. But Glenn's
scruples vanished, and as a matter of necessity he determined to
submit without reserve to the guidance of his experienced friend.

"I should like to know how them yaller rascals got up here so close
without being eyed sooner," said Sneak to Joe.

"That's what's been puzzling me, ever since I first saw them," said
Joe, in scarce audible tones.

"Split me if you havn't been asleep," said Sneak.

"No indeed I havn't," said Joe. "I'll declare," he continued, looking
out, "I never should have thought of _that_. I see now, well enough,
how they got there without my seeing them. They've got a great big
ball of snow, half as high as a man's head, and they've been rolling
it all the time, and creeping along behind it. They're all standing
before it now, and just as I looked one moved his leg, and then I saw
what it wa