ic
eyelashes and inquiring eyes when asked where was Belinda Rush,--which
conduct induced Mrs. Halsing's comment as to Mrs. MacLeod's proclivity
toward matchmaking. For in the neighborhood of the northwestern bastion
one might see, if one were very keen, sitting in the moonlight on the
tread of the banquette, Belinda Rush and Ensign Whitson--talking and
talking--of what?--so much!--in fact so much that at other times Ensign
Whitson had little to say, and Lieutenant Gilmore pined for lack of
contradiction, and his powers of argument fell away.

Captain Demere and Captain Stuart, on their way to a post of observation
in the block-house tower, came near running over these young people
seated thus one moonlight night--to Captain Demere's manifest confusion
and Captain Stuart's bluff delight, although both passed with serious
mien, doffing their hats with some casual words of salutation. Despite
his relish of the episode, Stuart glanced down at them afterward from
the block-house tower and said, in a tone of commiseration, "Poor little
love-story!"

"Why preempt ill-fortune for them, John?" broke out Demere, irritably.

"Bless you, my boy, I'm no prophet!" exclaimed Stuart easily.

[Illustration: Belinda and the Ensign on the moonlit rampart.]

The expected attack by the Indians took place one night late, in the
dead hour, after the sinking of the moon, and with all the cunning of a
designed surprise. The shadowy figures, that one might imagine would be
indistinguishable from the darkness, had crept forward, encompassing the
fort, approaching nearly to the glacis, when the crack of a sentry's
firelock rang out, splitting the dead silence, and every cannon of the
twelve roared in hideous unison, for the gunners throughout the night
lay ready beside the pieces. A fusillade ill-directed upon the works,
for the besiegers encountered the recoil of the surprise they had
planned, met a furious response from the loop-holes where the firelocks
of the garrison were reenforced by the rifles of the backwoodsmen. Every
man had been assigned his post, and it seemed that the wild alarum of
the drum had hardly begun to vibrate on the thrilling air when each,
standing aside from the loop-hole according to orders, leveled his
weapon without sighting and fired. Wild screams from without, now and
again, attested the execution of these blind volleys into the black
night, and the anguish that overcame the stoical fortitude of the
warlike Che