's the matter?" I asked.

"Poor Pomp can't."

"Can't? Why not? If I like to give you some now, no one will say
anything."

"Poor fellow," I added to myself, "how he remembers that he is a slave!"

All the time I was cutting him one of the solid slices of bread in which
I knew from old experience he delighted so much, and then carved off a
couple of good, pink-striped pieces of cold salt pork. But he drew away
with a sigh.

"Why, what's the matter, Pomp?"

"Eat much, too much now," he said, quaintly. "Pomp can't eat no more."

The mournful way in which he said this was comical in the extreme, for
he accompanied it with a sigh of regret, and shook his head as he turned
away, unable to bear longer the sight of the good food of which he was
unable to partake.

I had hardly finished my meal, and begun to feel a little rested and
refreshed, before I was attracted out into the enclosure where the
ladies and children, whom I had seen only the day before looking
cheerful and merry, were wearing a wild, scared look as they were being
hurried into the block-house, while the most vigorous preparations were
carried on.

"They don't mean to be taken by surprise, Morgan," I said, as I ran
against him, watching. "The Indians may not come after all."

"Not come?" he said. "What! Haven't you heard?"

"I--heard?"

"The message brought in by one of the scouts?"

I had not heard that any had been sent out, and I said so.

"The General sent them out directly, and one has come back to say that
they had found signs of Indians having been about, and that they had
been round by our clearing."

"Yes! Well?" I said.

"The dead Indians were gone."

I started at the news.

"Perhaps they did not go to the right place."

"Oh, yes, they did," said Morgan, seriously, "because two men told me
about finding the marks close beside the big tree where we had our
fight."

"Marks?" I said.

"Yes; you know. Well, they are keeping a good look-out, spread all
round, and keeping touch with each other. So you may be sure that the
enemy is not far off, and we expect them down upon us before long."

The thought of all this made the evening look gloomy and strange, though
it was a glorious sunset, for the clouds that gathered in the west were
to me like the smoke of burning houses touched with fire, and the deep
rich red glow like blood. And as I watched the changes, it seemed that
the softened reflections had turned into on