urs.

Like one pursued by a great terror, she fled to the house with her
precious burden, nor would she permit one to take it from her until her
husband's return.

When they examined the child they found him without scratch or blemish,
save for a curious and inflamed disfiguration on his left arm, just
below the shoulder. Though this soon healed, it was long before its
mystery was explained; but when Truman Flagg saw it, he pronounced it
to be the tattooed mark of an Indian totem.

CHAPTER VI

THE WILDERNESS

In a new country the changes effected during sixteen years are apt to
be greater than those of a lifetime in long-established communities.
Certainly this was the case in North America during the sixteen years
immediately preceding that of 1763. The bitter fighting between
England and France for the supremacy of the new world that began with
the signal defeat of the English army under Braddock, in 1755, was
ended four years later by Wolfe's decisive victory on the Plains of
Abraham. A year later France retired from the conflict and surrendered
Canada, with all its dependencies, to the English. These dependencies
included a long chain of tiny forts, about some of which were clustered
thrifty French settlements that extended entirely around the Great
Lakes and south of them into the valley of the Ohio. Among these were
Niagara at the mouth of the river of that name, Presque Isle on the
site of the present city of Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinac, Fort
Howard on Green Bay, and Fort St. Joseph near the southern end of Lake
Michigan. While from its commanding position the most important of
these forts was the first named; the largest, and the one surrounded by
the most thriving settlement was at Detroit. Here the fort itself was
a palisaded village of one hundred compactly built houses standing on
the western bank of the Detroit river. Beyond it, on both sides for
nearly eight miles, stretched the prosperous settlement of French
peasants, whose long, narrow farms reached far back from the river,
though in every case the tidy white houses and outbuildings stood close
to the water's edge.

The English settlements at the close of the war with France had not
crossed the Alleghanies, and in the province of New York the western
bank of the Hudson was an almost unbroken wilderness. Through the
country of the Six Nations, and by their especial permission, a
military route, guarded by a line of forts, had