"Yes," replied the scout, "an' I've heard it twice. Ef it wuzn't fur the
second time I wouldn't be so shore. Listen, thar she goes ag'in, like
thunder, but not thunder eggzackly."

"Can you make out what it is?"

"I wuz in the big French an' Injun War, too, when I wuz jest a mite uv a
boy," replied the scout, "and when I wuz layin' in the woods one day an'
one uv them battles wuz goin' on I heard a sound that's like the one
I've been hearin' now."

"What was it?" exclaimed the Major eagerly.

"It wuz the fust time I ever heard it. I wuz layin' close in the
thicket, a' it wuz at least five miles away. But I've never forgot that
sound. It wuz a cur'us thing. It wuz like a voice talkin'. It kep'
a-sayin' somethin' like this, 'Look out fur me! Look out fur me!' It wuz
a cannon shot, Major, an' it's a cannon shot that I've been hearin' now,
once, twice, an' now three times, an' it's sayin' jest ez it did years
an' years ago, 'Look out fur me! Look out fur me! Look out! Look out!'
an' it's a-sayin' to me at the same time that the fleet's a-comin'."

"Do you really think so?" exclaimed the Major joyfully.

"I shorely do, an' I do more than think, I know. The cannon that them
Injuns an' renegades had hez been sunk. Thar ain't any others in all the
west except them on the fleet, an' it's them that's been talkin'. Ez
shore ez we live, Major, the fleet's buttin' its way through the
darkness and the wind an' the thunder an' the lightnin' and the rain an'
the Injuns an' the renegades, an' is comin' straight to Fort Prescott."

The scout stood up, and Major Braithwaite saw by the lightning that his
face was transfigured. Hope and certainty had replaced fear and
uncertainty.

"Thar!" he exclaimed. "The fourth time. Don't you hear it, louder than
before?"

A low, deep note which certainly differed from that of the thunder now
came to the ears of Major Braithwaite, and his own experience of battle
fields told him its nature.

"It is cannon! it is surely cannon!" he exclaimed joyously. "And you are
right! It is the fleet coming to our relief! The boy got through!"

Major Braithwaite's face glowed, and so did that of Gregory Wilmot, who
was also now sure that they had heard the sound of the white man's great
guns. But they kept it to themselves for the present. There must be no
false hope, no raising of the garrison into joy merely to let it fall
back deeper into gloom. So they waited, and the far note of the cannon
did no