full of music, light, and joy, the peal of a
silver trumpet carried by the herald of Adam Colfax. Mellow and clear
its echo came back, sweeping over forest and river, and its breath was
life and hope.

"The battle trumpet!" exclaimed Major Braithwaite. "The vanguard of the
fleet! It is speaking to us! It tells us that friends are near. Here,
you men, build up a bonfire! Let them know just where we are and that we
are on watch!"

Twenty willing hands brought dry wood, and, despite the rain, a great
blaze leaped up within the palisade. It grew and grew. The flames,
yellow and red, roared and sprang higher, casting a bright light over
the wooden walls, the forest, the cliffs, and the river. Bullets
whistled from the forest, but they passed over the heads of the people
in the fort, and they let them go by unnoticed.

Higher rose the fires in the face of the rain, and the great yellow
light over the river deepened. When the lightning flared it was a
mixture of gold and silver, and it was so intense that they could see
the very crinkling of the water on its surface.

Again came the mellow note of the silver trumpet, a clear, far cry that
died away in little curves and undulations of sound. But it was nearer,
undeniably nearer, and once more it breathed life anew into the
listeners.

There was a sudden blaze of lightning, more vivid than all that had gone
before. The whole surface of the river leaped into the light, and upon
that surface, just where the stream curved before flowing into the
narrowest passage between the hills, appeared a black dot.

It was more than a black dot, it was a boat, and, despite the distance,
the astonishing vividness of the lightning made them see in it five
figures, five human figures, clad in the deerskin of the border.

"Tis the boy, Henry Ware and his comrades, ez shore ez I'm a livin'
sinner," muttered the scout. He could not see the faces, but he was
quite sure that the one who knelt in the prow was Henry Ware.

"It is they! It must be they!" exclaimed Major Braithwaite. "And look,
there are other boats behind them turning the curve--one, two, three,
four, and more--and look, how their rifles flash to right and left! They
beat back the red savages! Nothing can stop them! Build up the fires, my
lads, that they may see!"

The trumpet pealed for the third time, and it came from the prow of the
_Independence_. A mighty shout rose from the fort in reply, and then
from the forest and th