unmolested by the Indians, brought in from the different
points where they had fallen. The grave was soon filled up--a
short and mournful prayer read by the officer from memory, and the
party returned full of gloom, and with hearts bowed down by sorrow,
to the dismantled and desolate-looking fort.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"This act is an ancient tale twice told."
--_King John._

The wretchedness of that night who can tell! the despondency that
filled the hearts of all, not so much in regard to the present as
from apprehension for the future, who, untried in the same ordeal,
can comprehend? but the feelings of the remnant of that little
band, who were indebted for their safety to their own bravery, were
not selfish. They lamented as deeply the fate of the fallen, as
the dark and uncertain future that awaited themselves--uncertain
because, although the chiefs had promised, and with sincerity, that
they should be given up as prisoners of war at the nearest
post, they had seen too much of the falsehood of the race generally
to rely implicitly on its fulfilment by the warriors. Alas! where
were their comrades--friends, nay, brothers of yesterday? Where
was the brave, the noble-hearted Wells--where the once gay, ever
high-spirited Ronayne--where poor Von Voltenberg--the manly Sergeant
Nixon, a Virginian also--the faithful Corporal Green--and nearly
two thirds of the privates of the detachment? The very fact of
being in the fort again, and everywhere surrounded by objects
rendering more striking the contrast between the past and the
present, was agony in itself. There was scarcely a man among them
who would not have preferred bivouacking, in the wild wood, amid
storm and tempest, and the howling of beasts of prey, to resting
that night within the polluted precincts of what had so recently
been their safeguard and their pride.

Fortunately, the two surviving officers were, in some measure,
exempt from these mortifications. True to his word, Winnebeg had
caused Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley to be conveyed undercover of
the darkness from their place of concealment to the mansion of Mr.
McKenzie, which, from the great popularity of the trader with the
whole of the Indian tribes, had been left untouched--he himself
having been looked upon as a non-combatant, and, therefore, spared
from all personal outrage.

The meeting between the husbands and their wives--both the former
also slightly wounded during the day--was, a