bor are sufficient guard. But dream not, my lad, that
we are unobserved; doubtless fifty pair of skulking eyes are even now
upon us, marking every move. I venture we travel no more than a
hundred yards from the gate before our way is barred. Note how
peaceful the stockade appears! But for the closed gates, one would
never dream it the centre of hostile attack. Upon my word, even
love-making has not deserted its log-walls!"

I lifted my eyes where he pointed, and even at that distance, and
through the gathering gloom, I knew it was De Croix and Mademoiselle
who overhung those eastern palisades in proximity so close. The sight
was as fire to my blood, and with teeth clinched to keep back the mad
utterance of a curse, I strode beside Captain Heald silently down the
declivity to the deserted plain below.

It is my nature to be somewhat chary of speech, and to feel deeply and
long; but if I doubted it before, I knew now, in, this moment of keen
and bitter disappointment, that my heart was with that careless girl up
yonder, who had sent me forth into grave peril apparently without
thought, and who cared so little even now that she never lifted her
eyes from the sparkling water to trace our onward progress. Anger,
disappointment, disgust at her duplicity, her cruel abuse of power,
swept over and mastered me at the moment when I realized more deeply
than ever my own love for her, and my utter helplessness to oppose her
slightest whim. No Indian thongs could bind me half so tightly as the
false smiles of Toinette.

Plunged into this whirlpool of thought, I moved steadily forward at
Captain Heald's shoulder, unconscious of what might be taking place
about us, and for the moment indifferent to the result of our venture.
But this feeling was not for long. Scarcely had our progress taken us
across the front of the deserted agency building, and beyond the ken of
the sentinels in the Fort, when a single warrior rose before us as from
the ground, and blocked the path. He was a short, sturdy savage, bare
to the waist save for a chain of teeth which dangled with sinister
gleam about his brawny throat, and, from the wide sweep of his
shoulders, evidently possessed of prodigious strength. He held a gun
extended in front of him, and made a gesture of warning impossible to
misapprehend.

"What seeks the White Chief?" he questioned bluntly. "Does he come for
peace or war?"

The query came with such grave abruptness that Heal