ter
receiving the cash, Sneak turned away perfectly satisfied, and seemed
not to bestow another thought upon his puppies.

This affair had hardly been settled before Joe made his appearance on
Pete. He rode slowly along down the path, as dolefully as ever man
approached the graveyard. As he drew near, all eyes were fixed upon
him. Never were any one's features so much disfigured. His nose was as
large as a hen's egg, and as purple as a plum. Still it was not much
disproportioned to the rest of his swollen face; and the whole
resembled the unearthly phiz of the most bloated gnome that watched
over the slumbers of Rip Van Winkle.

CHAPTER III.

Glenn's castle--Mary--Books--A hunt--Joe and Pete--A tumble--An
opossum--A shot--Another tumble--A doe--The return--They set out
again--A mound--A buffalo--An encounter--Night--Terrific
spectacle--Escape--Boone--Sneak--Indians.

Some weeks had passed since the bear hunt. The emigrants had crossed
the river, and selected their future homes in the groves that bordered
the prairie, some miles distant from the ferry. Glenn, when landed on
the south side of the Missouri, took up his abode for a short time
with Jasper Roughgrove, the ferryman, while some half dozen men, whose
services his gold secured, were building him a novel habitation. And
the location was as singular as the construction of his house. It was
on a peak that jutted over the river, some three hundred feet high,
whence he had a view eight or ten miles down the stream, and across
the opposite bottom-land to the hills mentioned in the preceding
chapter. The view was obstructed above by a sudden bend of the stream;
but on the south, the level prairie ran out as far as the eye could
reach, interrupted only by the young groves that were interspersed at
intervals. His house, constructed of heavy stones, was about fifteen
feet square, and not more than ten in height. The floor was formed of
hewn timbers, the walls covered with a rough coat of lime, and the
roof made of heavy boards. However uncouth this abode appeared to the
eye of Glenn, yet he had followed the instructions of Boone, (to whom
he had fully disclosed his plan, and repeated his odd resolution,) and
reared a tenement not only capable of resisting the wintry winds that
were to howl around it, but sufficiently firm to withstand the attacks
of any foe, whether the wild beast of the forest or the prowling
Indian. The door was very narrow and low, being ma