t allow me to accompany them on their
return, and I would remain in the neighborhood of the Fort until Elsa
Matherson had been found.

Just in front of us, a large army wain struggled along through the
yielding sand, drawn by a yoke of lumbering oxen. The heavy canvas
cover had been pushed high up in front, and I could see a number of
women and children seated upon the bedding piled within, and looking
with curious interest at the stream of Indians plodding moodily beside
the wheels. Some of the little tots' faces captivated me with their
expression of wide-eyed wonder, and I rode forward to speak with them;
for love of children is always in my heart.

As I turned my horse to draw back beside Mademoiselle, my eyes rested
upon the stockade of the old Fort, now some little distance in our
rear; and to my surprise it already swarmed with savages. Not less
than five hundred Indians,--warriors, all of them, and well
armed,--tramped as guards beside our long and scattered column, yet
hundreds of others were even now overrunning the mound and pouring in
at the Fort gates, eager for plunder. I could hear their shouting,
their fierce yells of exultation, while the grim and silent fellows who
accompanied us never so much as glanced around, although I caught here
and there the glint of a cruel, crafty eye. The sight made me wonder;
and I swung my long rifle out from the straps at my back down across
the pommel of my saddle, more ready to my hand.

The trail we had been following now swerved nearer the lake, deflected
somewhat by a long high ridge of beaten sand, separating the shore from
the prairie. Here the two advancing lines of white and red diverged,
the Indians moving around to the western side of the sand-ridge, while
Captain Wells and his Miami scouts continued their march along the
beach. There was nothing about this movement to awaken suspicion of
treachery, for the beach at this point had narrowed too much for so
great a number moving abreast, and it was therefore only natural that
our allies should seek a wider space for their marching, knowing they
could easily reunite with us a mile or so below, where the beach
broadened again. Their passing thus from our sight was a positive
relief; and so quiet did everything become, except for groaning wheels
and the heavy tread of horses, that Mademoiselle glanced up in surprise.

"Why, what has become of the Indians?" she questioned. "Have they
already left us?"