“I believe you’re afeard to go back by yourself,” said Sneak, laughing heartily.
“Pshaw, Sneak, I don’t think any of ’em followed us, do you?” continued Joe, peering at the bushes and trees in the valley, which they were entering.
“No,” said Sneak; “I only wanted to skeer you a bit.”
“I’ve killed too many savages to be scared by them now,” said Joe, carelessly striding onward.
“What was you a going back for, if you wasn’t skeered?”
“I wonder what always makes you think I’m frightened when I talk of going into the house! Sneak, you’re always mistaken. I wasn’t thinking about myself—I only wanted to put Mr. Glenn on his guard.”
“Then what made you tell that wapper for, the other night, about cutting that Indian’s throat?”
“How do you know it was a wapper?” asked Joe, somewhat what embarrassed by Sneak’s home-thrust.
“Bekaise, don’t I know that I cut his juggler-vein myself? Didn’t the blood gush all over me? and didn’t he fall down dead before he had time to holler?” continued Sneak, with much warmth and earnestness.
“Sneak,” said Joe, “I’ve no doubt you thought he was dead—but then you must know it’s nearly as hard to kill a man as a cat. You might have been mistaken; every body is liable to be deceived—even a person’s eyes deceive him sometimes. I don’t pretend to say that I haven’t been mistaken before now, myself. It may be possible that I was mistaken about the Indian as well as you—I might have just thought I saw him move. But I was there longer than you, and the inference is that I didn’t stand as good a chance to be deceived.”