the southward
convinced me that our Indian besiegers were yet astir and concocting
some fresh deviltry at their camp. With a half-uttered prayer that
they might all be there, I hastily pressed the water from my soggy
clothes and plunged forward into the unknown darkness. A big
cottonwood, as from its shape I judged it to be, rose against the stars
in my front,--a dim outline swaying slightly in the westerly wind, and
I took it as my first guide-mark, moving over the rough unknown ground
as rapidly and silently as possible.

The soft moccasins I wore aided me greatly, nor were there many trees
along the way to drop twigs in the path to crackle under foot; yet I
found the ground uneven and deceptive, rifted with small gullies, and
more or less bestrewn with stones, against which I stumbled in the
darkness. I was too thoroughly trained in the stern and careful school
of the frontier not to be cautious at such a time, for I knew that
silence and seeming desolation were no proof of savage desertion; nor
did I believe that Indian strategy would leave the north of the Fort
wholly unguarded. Any rock, any black ravine, any clump of trees or
bushes, might well be the lurking-place of hostiles, who would only too
gladly wreak their vengeance upon any hapless straggler falling into
their hands. I was unarmed, save for the long hunting-knife I carried
in the bosom of my shirt; but my thought was not of fighting,--it was
to get through without discovery.

To De Croix I gave small consideration, save that the memory of the
wager was a spur to urge me forward at greater speed. The place was
strangely, painfully still; even the savage yelling of the distant
Indians seemed to die away as I advanced, and nothing broke the
oppressive silence but an occasional flutter of leaves, or my own deep
breathing. I had gone, I take it, half or three-quarters of a mile,
not directly north, but circling ever to the eastward, seeking thus to
reach the house from the rear, when I came to a sharp break in the
surface of the land, somewhat deeper and more abrupt than those before
encountered. It seemed like a cut or ravine made by some rush of water
lakeward; and, as I hesitated upon the edge of it, peering across and
wondering if I had better risk the plunge, my eyes caught the blaze of
the Kinzie light scarce a hundred yards from the opposite bank of the
ravine.

Assured that I was headed right, I stepped off with a new confidence
that, fo