only kept watch!" he remarked to his companion, when telling
him of what he had seen.

"Yes, if we only had!"

If they had, and had succeeded in gaining the vessel, it would probably
never have reached Detroit; they, and every soul on board, would
probably have been killed, and the whole course of events in that
section of country would have been changed. Even as it was, the
schooner was in most imminent danger; for her coming had been
anticipated by Pontiac as well as by the garrison at Detroit, and every
preparation known to that warlike chief had been made for her capture.

As she entered the river her every movement was watched by hundreds of
gleaming eyes from the wooded banks, and when, with the dying out of
the breeze, she was forced to drop anchor, it was with difficulty that
the impatient warriors were persuaded from making an attack then and
there.

CHAPTER XXXI

PONTIAC RECOGNIZES THE TOTEM

The vexatious calm lasted for two days. During this time the schooner
_Gladwyn_ caught only such puffs of wind as carried her a few miles up
the river, and left her again anchored in the very narrowest part of
the channel, still some ten miles below the fort. No sign of human
presence had been discovered by those on board, no sound came from the
solemn forests. Shy water-fowl swam fearlessly on the unruffled
current that gurgled against the schooner's bow, and for aught their
senses could discover, her people might have been the sole occupants of
that beautiful, treacherous wilderness.

At sunset the distant boom of a heavy gun cheered their hearts with the
knowledge that Detroit still held out, and redoubled their desire to
gain its safe haven after their tedious voyage. Officers and men
walked the deck impatiently, and searched the sky for wind clouds,
while the sailors whistled shrilly for a breeze. But none came and the
night descended calm, dark, and still. As the slow hours dragged
themselves away, the ship's company, weary of the monotony of their
watch, sought their sleeping places, or found such scant comfort as the
decks afforded, until of them all only the sentry was awake.

Still the schooner was not unprepared for an attack. Her broadside
guns were loaded to the muzzle with grape and musket balls. Every man
on board was armed, even as he slept, and her only danger lay in being
boarded by an overwhelming number of the enemy, against whom the heavy
guns would thus be rendered ineffecti