they had last
quitted the waters of the Detroit; and but for the inward sinking of
the spirit, reflected in many a bronzed and furrowed brow, there was
little to show they had been exposed to any very extraordinary trials.

Their meal having been hastily dispatched, and sweetened by a draught
from the depths of the Huron, the seamen once more sprang into their
boats, and devoted themselves, heart and soul, to the completion of
their task, pulling with a vigour that operated on each and all with a
tendency to encouragement and hope. At length the vessel, still
impelled by her own sweeps, gradually approached the land; and at
rather more than an hour before sunset was so near that the moment was
deemed arrived when, without danger of being perceived, she might be
run up along the shore to the point alluded to by the boatswain. Little
more than another hour was occupied in bringing her to her station; and
the red tints of departing day were still visible in the direction of
the ill-fated fortress of Michilimackinac, when the sullen rumbling of
the cable, following the heavy splash of the anchor, announced the
place of momentary concealment had been gained.

The anchorage lay between two projecting headlands; to the outermost
extremities of which were to be seen, overhanging the lake, the stately
birch and pine, connected at their base by an impenetrable brushwood,
extending to the very shore, and affording the amplest concealment,
except from the lake side and the banks under which the schooner was
moored. From the first quarter, however, little danger was incurred, as
any canoes the savages might send in discovery of their course, must
unavoidably be seen the moment they appeared over the line of the
horizon, while, on the contrary, their own vessel, although much
larger, resting on and identified with the land, must be invisible,
except on a very near approach. In the opposite direction they were
equally safe; for, as Mullins had truly remarked, none, save a few
wandering hunters, whom chance occasionally led to the spot, were to be
met with in a part of the country that lay so completely out of the
track of communication between the fortresses. It was, however, but to
double the second headland in their front, and they came within view of
the Sinclair, the head of which was situated little more than a league
beyond the spot where they now lay. Thus secure for the present, and
waiting only for the rising of the breeze,