wary. But by entirely surrounding
the little fort and creeping through the long grass they succeeded in a
few hours in shooting every one of the mules and horses of the traders.
The savages kept up an incessant howling, and thirty-six dreadful hours
thus passed away. It seemed but a prolongation of death's agonies. Hunger
and thirst would ere long destroy them, even though they should escape the
arrow and the tomahawk. It was not deemed wise to expend a single charge
of powder or a bullet, unless sure of their aim. And the Indians crept so
near, prostrated in the long grass, that not a head could be raised above
the frail ramparts without encountering the whiz of arrows.

The day passed away. Night came and went. Another day dawned, and the
hours lingered slowly along, while the traders lay flat upon the ground,
cramped in their narrow limits, awaiting apparently the sure approach of
death.

The night was dark, dense clouds obscuring the sky. The Indians themselves
had become somewhat weary, and deeming it impossible for their victims to
escape and feeling sure of the booty, which could by no possibility be
removed, relaxed their watchfulness. As any death was preferable to
captivity and torture by the Indians, the traders resolved, in the gloom
of midnight to attempt an escape, though the chances were a hundred to one
that they would be almost buried beneath the arrows of the howling
savages.

Cautiously they emerged from their hiding-place, creeping slowly and
almost breathlessly through the tall grass of the prairie, till quite to
their surprise, they found themselves beyond the circle of the besiegers.
There were ten men, one wounded, fleeing for life, expecting every moment
to be pursued by five hundred savages. It was a long, dark, dismal
winter's night, for in that changing clime a freezing night succeeded a
sunny day. Like spectres they fled over the open prairie. That their
flight might not be encumbered they had taken nothing with them but their
guns and ammunition.

They were determined men. In whatever numbers and with whatever speed the
mounted Indians might ride down upon them, ten of their warriors would
inevitably bite the dust ere the fugitives could be taken. The Indians
fully understood this. And when the morning dawned and they saw that their
victims had escaped, instead of pursuing, they satisfied their valor in
holding a triumphant powwow over the rich booty they had gained.

It was a chill d