"And while my cane was brandished
in the air and about descending on its devoted head, a low clucking
arrested my arm, and approaching closer to it than before, and gazing
steadfastly a moment, I lowered my cane to its usual position, and
fell back laughing on the grass among the raspberries you had
dropped."

"Mr. Boone--Mr. Boone!" cried Joe, springing up in a sitting attitude,
and seizing the hand of the veteran, "for Heaven's sake tell me what
it was?"

"It was an old SITTING HEN!" said Boone.

"Upon your honour?" continued Joe, leaping upon his feet, and staring
the aged hunter in the face, while his eyes gleamed with irrepressible
hope and anxiety.

"It was nothing else, upon my honour," replied Boone, laughing in
concert with the rest.

"Huzza! huzza!! huzza!!!" shouted Joe, casting the bandages hither and
thither, and dancing nimbly over the floor. "Fal-de-lal--tider-e-i--
tider-e-o-- tider-e-um!" he continued, in frenzied delight, and,
observing Sneak at the door with an armful of plantain (who had
returned in time to witness his abrupt recovery, and now continued to
regard him with wonder and doubt--at times thinking he was delirious,)
skipped up and held out both hands, as if inviting him to dance.

"Dod rot it, your leg ain't swelled a bit!" said Sneak.

"Don't use that bad word, Sneak," said Mary.

"I won't--but dod--he's had me running all over--"

"Tider-e-i--tider-e-um!" continued Joe, still dancing, while the
perspiration streamed over his face.

"Have done with this nonsense, Joe!" said Glenn, "or else continue
your ridiculous exercises on the grass in the yard. You may rejoice
now, but this affair will be sport for others all your life. You will
not relish it so much to-morrow."

"I'd rather all the world would laugh at me alive and kicking, than
that one of you should mourn over my dead body," replied Joe, leaping
over Sneak, who was sitting in the door, and striding to the grass
plot under the elm, where he continued his rejoicings. Sneak followed,
and, sitting down on the bench in the shade, seemed to muse with
unusual gravity at the strange spectacle presented by Joe.

This was Joe's last wild western adventure. The incident was soon
forgotten by the party in the house. Serious and sad thoughts
succeeded the mirthful scene described above. Roughgrove had brought
Boone thither to receive their last farewell! The renowned woodman and
warrior wore marks of painful regret on his pale f