t for an
army and you besides? Have you had anything to eat?"

"Yes, sir," I answered.

We came to the fires, and Captain Bowman hurried up to meet him.

"We're piling up earthworks and barricades," said the Captain, "for the
fight to-morrow. My God! if the Willing would only come, we could put
our cannon into them."

Clark laughed.

"Bowman," said he, kindly, "has Davy fed you yet?"

"No," says the Captain, surprised, "I've had no time to eat."

"He seems to have fed the whole army," said the Colonel. He paused.
"Have they scented Lamothe or Maisonville?"

"Devil a scent!" cried the Captain, "and we've scoured wood and
quagmire. They tell me that Lamothe has a very pretty force of redskins
at his heels."

"Let McChesney go," said Clark sharply, "McChesney and Ray. I'll warrant
they can find 'em."

Now I knew that Maisonville had gone out a-chasing Captain Willing's
brother,--he who had run into our arms. Lamothe was a noted Indian
partisan and a dangerous man to be dogging our rear that night. Suddenly
there came a thought that took my breath and set my heart a-hammering.
When the Colonel's back was turned I slipped away beyond the range of
the firelight, and I was soon on the prairie, stumbling over hummocks
and floundering into ponds, yet going as quietly as I could, turning now
and again to look back at the distant glow or to listen to the rifles
popping around the fort. The night was cloudy and pitchy dark. Twice
the whirring of startled waterfowl frightened me out of my senses, but
ambition pricked me on in spite of fear. I may have gone a mile thus,
perchance two or three, straining every sense, when a sound brought
me to a stand. At first I could not distinguish it because of my heavy
breathing, but presently I made sure that it was the low drone of human
voices. Getting down on my hands and knees, I crept forward, and felt
the ground rising. The voices had ceased. I gained the crest of a low
ridge, and threw myself flat. A rattle of musketry set me shivering, and
in an agony of fright I looked behind me to discover that I could not be
more than four hundred yards from the fort. I had made a circle. I lay
very still, my eyes watered with staring, and then--the droning began
again. I went forward an inch, then another and another down the slope,
and at last I could have sworn that I saw dark blurs against the ground.
I put out my hand, my weight went after, and I had crashed through a
coating of ice