itation.

In all this wide survey from the little knoll on which the Fort stood,
five houses only were visible. These were built roughly of logs in the
most primitive style of the frontier, and, with a single exception, were
now deserted by their occupants, who had retreated for safety to the
stockade of the Fort. The single exception was the larger and more
ambitious dwelling standing on the north bank of the river, occupied by
John Kinzie and his family, himself an old-time Indian trader, whose
honesty and long dealing with the savages had made him confident of their
friendship and fidelity. At one time, however, so threatening had become
the strange bands that flocked in toward Dearborn, as crows to a feast,
he also deserted his home, and, with those dependent upon him, sought
refuge within the Fort walls; but, influenced by the pledge of the
Pottawattomies, and believing that safety lay in trusting to their
friendship, they had returned to their own house. The other cabins were
scattered to the westward of the stockade, close to the river bank.
These dwellings had been occupied by the families of Ouilmette, Burns,
and Lee, respectively; while the last named owned a second cabin, built
some distance up the south branch of the river, and occupied by a tenant
named Liberty White.

The prospect was in truth depressing to one accustomed to other and more
civilized surroundings. A spirit of loneliness, of fearful isolation,
seemed to hover over the restless waters upon the one hand, and those
vast silent plains on the other; sea and sky, sky and sand, met the
wearied eye wherever it wandered. The scene was unspeakably solemn in
its immensity and loneliness; while irresistibly the thought would wander
over those fateful leagues of prairie and forest that stretched
unbrokenly between this far frontier and the few scattered and remote
settlements that were its nearest neighbors.

It was not until some time later that these sombre reflections pressed
upon me with all their force. After the excitement of our first
boisterous greeting was over, and I found opportunity to lean across the
top of the guarded stockade and gaze alone over the desolate spectacle I
have endeavored to describe, I could feel more acutely the hopelessness
of our situation and the danger threatening us from every side. But at
the moment of our entrance, all my interest and attention had been
centred upon the scenes and persons immediately about