the Indian encampment, but without seeing anything whatsoever. Not a
camp-fire was burning, and I failed to hear even the howling of a dog,
which was something so unusual as to cause us no little surprise.

"Can it be that Thayendanega's gang has deserted General St. Leger?" I
asked, in a whisper. "The sergeant will have it that they are done with
the siege, in which case it wouldn't be surprisin' if they had sneaked
away."

"There's no such good news as that," Jacob said, with a laugh; "but I'm
puzzled to make out why they're so quiet."

Had we been left to our own counsels ten minutes longer I believe I might
have been tempted to waken the sergeant, which would have given him an
opportunity to laugh at us because we had grown nervous over the absence
of all danger-signs; but just then Peter Sitz approached, and I whispered
to my comrade in a tone of relief that he and I were not the only nervous
members of the garrison.

"It seems as if all hands had it in mind that we need lookin' after,"
Jacob replied, grimly, and then his father asked if we had seen anything
unusual since the powwow came to an end.

"It's what we've neither seen nor heard that's puzzlin' us, sir," my
comrade said, and then he called his father's attention to the remarkable
quiet which reigned where, ordinarily, noises of some kind could be heard
during every hour of the night.

Master Sitz appeared decidedly disturbed in mind, yet he made no comment,
and, after listening in vain five minutes or more, he walked away without
giving heed to us.

It really appeared, before that long night had come to an end, as if every
officer in the fort suspected something might be wrong, and, what seemed
yet more strange to me, they all came directly to our post, instead of
visiting those sentinels who, if the savages had really cut loose from St.
Leger, should have been in the best positions to hear or see the first
signs of the expected assault.

I have set all this down at considerable length because, in view of what
finally occurred, it was much as if our people had a premonition of that
which was to come.

The night passed without alarm, and I am willing to take my oath that if
any animal as large as a dog had passed within an hundred yards of the
sally-port we would have seen it.

The entire garrison, even including women and children, was astir when the
first gray light of coming day appeared in the eastern sky, and as each
man came out upon the