Part 19 (1/2)
”Is he shot?” exclaimed Mary, instantly producing some lint and bandages which she had prepared in antic.i.p.ation of such an event.
”I fear he has received a serious hurt,” said Glenn, aiding Mary, who had proceeded at once to bind up the wound.
”I'll be split if he's shot!” said Sneak, going out and returning to his post. Glenn did likewise when he saw the first indications of returning consciousness in his man; and Mary was left alone to restore and nurse poor Joe. But he could not have been in better hands.
”I should like to know something about them curious words the feller was speaking when he keeled over,” said Sneak, as he looked out at the now quiet scene from the loophole, and mused over the events of the night. ”I begin to believe that the feller's a going to die. I don't believe any man could talk so, if he wasn't dying.”
”Have you seen any of them lately?” inquired Boone, coming to Sneak's post and running his eye along the horizon through the loophole.
”Not a one,” replied Sneak, ”except that feller laying out yander by the s...o...b..ll.”
”He's dead,” said Boone, ”and he is the only one that we are sure of having killed to-night. But many are wounded.”
”And smash me if Joe didn't kill that one when his musket went off before he was ready,” said Sneak.
”Yes, I saw him fall when Joe fired; and that accident was, after all, a fortunate thing for us,” continued Boone.
”But I'm sorry for poor Joe,” said Sneak.
”Pshaw!” said Boone; ”he'll be well again, in an hour.”
”No, he's a gone chicken.”
”Why do you think so?”
”Didn't he say so himself? and didn't he gabble out a whole parcel of purgatory talk? He's as sure gone as a stuck pig, I tell you,”
continued Sneak.
”He will eat as hearty a breakfast to-morrow morning as ever he did in his life,” said Boone. ”But let us attend to the business in hand. I hardly think we will be annoyed any more from this quarter, unless yonder dead Indian was a chief, and then it is more than probable they will try to steal him away. However, you may remain here. I, alone, can manage the others.”
”Which others?” inquired Sneak.
”Those under the snow,” replied Boone; ”they are now within twenty paces of the palisade.”
”You don't say so?” said Sneak, c.o.c.king his gun.
”I have been listening to them cutting through the snow a long while, and it will be a half hour yet before I spring the mine,” said Boone.
”I hope it will kill 'em all!” said Sneak.
”Watch close, and perhaps _you_ will kill one yet from this loophole,”
said Boone, returning to his post, where the slow-match was exposed through the palisade near the ground; and Roughgrove stood by, holding a pistol, charged with powder only, in readiness to fire the train when Boone should give the word of command.
Boone applied his ear to a crevice between the timbers near the earth, where the snow had been cleared away. After remaining in this position a few moments, he beckoned Glenn to him.
”Place your ear against this crevice,” said Boone.
”It is not the Indians I hear, certainly!” remarked Glenn. The sounds resembled the ticking of a large clock, differing only in their greater rapidity than the strokes of seconds.