le column sallied forth. In
the van rode Captain Wells and his little band of Miamis, whose
lugubrious appearance likened the march much more to a funeral
procession than to the movements of troops confident in themselves,
and reposing faith in those whose services had been purchased. Next
came thirty men of the detachment, and to them succeeded the wagons,
containing, besides the women and children and sick, such stores
of the garrison, including spare ammunition, with the luggage of
the officers and men, as could not be dispensed with. Thirty men,
composing the remaining subdivision of the healthy portion of the
detachment, brought up the rear. Their route lay along the lake
shore, while the Indians moved in a parallel line with them,
separated only by a long range of sandhills.

Both excellent horsewomen, and mounted on splendid chargers whose
good points had for years been proved by them in their numerous
rides in the neighborhood, Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley, with
Ronayne on horseback, brought up the extreme rear. The former,
habited in a riding dress which fitted admirably to her noble and
graceful figure, was cool and collected as though her ride were
one of mere ordinary parade. Deep thought there was in her
countenance, it is true. Less than woman had she been had none been
observable there; but of that unquiet manner which belongs to the
nervous and the timid, there was no trace. She spoke to Mrs.
Elmsley--who also manifested a firmness not common to a woman, to
one under similar circumstances, but still of a less decided
character than that of her companion--of indifferent subjects,
expressing, among other things, her regret that they were then
leaving for ever the wild but beautifully romantic country in which
they had passed so many happy days. "How we shall amuse ourselves
at Fort Wayne," she concluded, after one of those remarks, "heaven
only knows; for although I spent a great part of my girlhood there,
I confess it is the most dull station in which I have ever been
quartered."

"How," remarked Ronayne, with an effort at gaiety his looks belied,
"can the colors be better flanked than by two ladies who unite in
themselves all the chivalrous courage of a Joan d'Arc and a Jeanne
d'Amboise. Really, my dear Mrs. Headley," glancing at the black
morocco belt girt around her waist, and from which protruded the
handles of two pistols about eight inches in length, "I would advise
no Pottowatomie to approach