I know not how far, walking in the water, my eye alert to every
movement about me. At length I stopped and caught my breath. Before me,
in a glade opening out under great trees, what seemed a myriad of forked
sticks were piled against one another, three by three, and it struck me
all in a heap that I had come upon a great encampment. But the skeletons
of the pyramid tents alone remained. Where were the skins? Was the camp
deserted?

For a while I stared through the brier leaves, then I took a venture,
pushed on, and found myself in the midst of the place. It must have held
near a thousand warriors. All about me were gray heaps of ashes, and
bones of deer and elk and buffalo scattered, some picked clean, some with
the meat and hide sticking to them. Impelled by a strong fascination, I
went hither and thither until a sound brought me to a stand--the echoing
crack of a distant rifle. On the heels of it came another, then several
together, and a faint shouting borne on the light wind. Terrorized, I
sought for shelter. A pile of brush underlain by ashes was by, and I
crept into that. The sounds continued, but seemed to come no nearer, and
my courage returning, I got out again and ran wildly through the camp
toward the briers on the creek, expecting every moment to be tumbled
headlong by a bullet. And when I reached the briers, what between
panting and the thumping of my heart I could for a few moments hear
nothing. Then I ran on again up the creek, heedless of cover, stumbling
over logs and trailing vines, when all at once a dozen bronze forms
glided with the speed of deer across my path ahead. They splashed over
the creek and were gone. Bewildered with fear, I dropped under a fallen
tree. Shouts were in my ears, and the noise of men running. I stood up,
and there, not twenty paces away, was Colonel Clark himself rushing
toward me. He halted with a cry, raised his rifle, and dropped it at the
sight of my queer little figure covered with ashes.

"My God!" he cried, "it's Davy."

"They crossed the creek," I shouted, pointing the way, "they crossed the
creek, some twelve of them."

"Ay," he said, staring at me, and by this time the rest of the guard were
come up. They too stared, with different exclamations on their
lips,--Cowan and Bowman and Tom McChesney and Terence McCann in front.

"And there's a great camp below," I went on, "deserted, where a thousand
men have been."

"A camp--deserted?" said Clark, quickly.

"Y