pillaging; children were clinging
about their mothers and peevishly plaining, their nerves unstrung by the
rush and commotion, and the unaccustomed aspect of the place; bundles of
clothing and bedding lay about on the ground; the pioneers moved hither
and thither, now seeking to adjust discomforts and clear the domestic
atmosphere, now aiding in the preparations for an expected attack.

Odalie, who had braced up her heart, found little to encourage her as
she went from one to another of the matrons and sought to comfort them
with the reflection that it might have been worse. "For my own part,"
she declared, "I think of what might have been. If my household gear
were not sacrificed we should have been at home last night when the
Indians came and found us gone and sacked and fired the house. And such
a little thing to save us--Fifine's talk of seeing Willinawaugh."

"Him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf," reiterated Fifine, who
had become impressed with the belief that she had done something very
clever indeed, and was enchanted to hear it celebrated.

Odalie's exertions were more appreciated at the hospital, where she
assisted in dressing the wounds and caring for the comfort of the
soldiers who had been shot. Afterward, still determined to make the best
of things and to help all she could, she discovered a mission to tax her
powers in offering to assist in what manner she might the
quarter-master-sergeant. That functionary looked as if the conundrum of
the created world had suddenly been propounded to him. He was a short,
square, red-faced man, with light, staring, gray eyes, and they seemed
about to pop out of his head whenever the finding of quarters for
another family was required of him.

"Why couldn't they have brought some conveniences, such as knives and
forks and cups and platters, instead of fool trifles?" he demanded
fiercely, aside, as he turned away from one group who were as destitute
of all appliances as if they had expected to peck off the ground, or
drink out of the bubbles of the spring branch. "I have got none to spare
except those of the poor fellows who were killed and Corporal O'Flynn's,
for he will be equal to nothing but spoon-meat for one while."

"Oh, the poor settlers,--I pity them,--and poor Mr. Green,--I feel very
guilty, for I came here just such a charge on the resources of the fort,
myself."

He paused pudgily, as if he were mentally in full run and had brought up
with a sho