red light of the forge was crossed and re-crossed
by those who moved about inside the shop. Aunt Candace and I had sat
long together talking of the War, and of the raiding on the Kansas
border. She was a balm to my spirit, for she was a strong, fearless
woman, always comforting in the hour of sorrow, and self-possessed in
the face of danger. I wonder how the mothers of Springvale could have
done without her. She decked the brides for their weddings, and tenderly
laid out the dead. The new-born babe she held in her arms, and dying
eyes looking back from the Valley of the Shadow, sought her face. That
night I slept little, and I welcomed the coming of day. When the morning
dawned the world was flooded with sunshine, and a cool steady west wind
blew the town clear of mud and wet, the while the Neosho Valley was
threshed with the swollen, angry waters.

With the coming of the sunshine the strangers disappeared. Nowhere all
that day were there any but our own town's people to be seen. Some of
these, however, I knew afterwards, were very busy. I remember seeing
Conlow and Mapleson and Dodd sauntering carelessly about in different
parts of the town, especially upon Cliff Street, which was unusual for
them. Just at nightfall the town was filled with strangers again. Yeager
and his companion, who had been water-bound, returned with half a dozen
more to the Cambridge House, and other unknown men were washed in from
the west. That night I saw the red light briefly. Then it disappeared,
and I judged the shop was deserted. I did not dream whose head was
shutting off the light from me, nor whose eyes were peering in through
that crevice in the wall. The night was peacefully beautiful, but its
beauty was a mockery to me, filled as I was with a nameless anxiety. I
had no reason for it, yet I longed for the return of Father Le Claire.
He had not taken Jean with him, and I judged that the Indian was near us
somewhere and in the very storm centre of all this uneasiness.

At midnight I wakened suddenly. Outside, a black starless sky bent over
a cool, quiet earth. A thick darkness hid all the world. Dead stillness
everywhere. And yet, I listened for a voice to speak again that I was
sure I had heard as I wakened. I waited only a moment. A quick rapping
under my window, and a low eager call came to my ears. I sprang up and
groped my way to the open casement.

"What's the matter down there?" I called softly.

"Phil, jump into your clothes