r refuge?"

The little woman, with the face of a girl, looked up at me indignantly
through her tears.

"Lieutenant Helm marches with the troops," she answered quietly, "and I
am his wife."

I retain no memory, at this late day, of what conversation followed. I
know that De Croix in his easy carelessness about the future, sought to
laugh at her fears and restore a feeling of hopefulness; but all my
thoughts were elsewhere,--upon the grave dilemma in which we found
ourselves, and my duty to these helpless ones upon every side.

I must have left the two standing there and conversing, though just how
I moved, and why, is dim to me. I recall crossing the bare parade, and
noting the company that formed the little garrison drawn up in the
shadow of the south stockade. At any other time I should have paused
in interest, for military evolutions always attracted my attention; but
then I had no sense other than that of mental and physical exhaustion
from the hours of toil and lack of rest. Owing to my absence the night
before, no quarters had been assigned me; but finding the barracks of
the troops unoccupied, and yielding to imperative need, I flung myself,
without undressing, upon a vacant bunk, and lay there tossing with the
burden of intense fatigue.

And then how the thoughts I sought to banish thronged upon me! No
effort of my will could shut them out. I went over again and again the
quarrel with De Croix, the incidents of the night, the solemn words of
Mrs. Helm. Little by little, each detail clear and absolute, there
unrolled before my mind's view the picture of our situation. I saw it
as a frontiersman must, in all its grim probabilities. The little
isolated Fort was cut off from all communication, held by a weakened
garrison. Hope of rescue there was none. Without were already
gathered hundreds of warriors attracted by rumors of war and promise of
pillage; and these were growing in number and increasing in ferocity
each day. I had ridden through them once, when their mood was only to
annoy, and realized with a shudder of horror what it would mean to face
them in our retreat, with all restraint of their chiefs removed. I
thought of those long leagues of tangled forest-land stretching between
us and the nearest border settlements, of ambuscades, of constant and
harassing attack on the ever-thinning column as we fought for each foot
of the way. Once my mind dwelt for an instant upon the quiet home I
had