oming to crush them. Night fell, the colors were furled
and the saplings dropped, and we pressed into serried ranks and marched
straight over hill and dale for the lights that were beginning to twinkle
ahead of us.

We halted once more, a quarter of a mile away. Clark himself had picked
fourteen men to go under Lieutenant Bayley through the town and take the
fort from the other side. Here was audacity with a vengeance. You may
be sure that Tom and Cowan and Ray were among these, and I trotted after
them with the drum banging against my thighs.

Was ever stronghold taken thus?

They went right into the town, the fourteen of them, into the main street
that led directly to the fort. The simple citizens gave back, stupefied,
at sight of the tall, striding forms. Muffled Indians stood like statues
as we passed, but these raised not a hand against us. Where were
Hamilton, Hamilton's soldiers and savages? It was as if we had come
a-trading.

The street rose and fell in waves, like the prairie over which it ran.
As we climbed a ridge, here was a little log church, the rude cross on
the belfry showing dark against the sky. And there, in front of us,
flanked by blockhouses with conical caps, was the frowning mass of Fort
Sackville.

"Take cover," said Williams, hoarsely. It seemed incredible.

The men spread hither and thither, some at the corners of the church,
some behind the fences of the little gardens. Tom chose a great forest
tree that had been left standing, and I went with him. He powdered his
pan, and I laid down my drum beside the tree, and then, with an impulse
that was rare, Tom seized me by the collar and drew me to him.

"Davy," he whispered, and I pinched him. "Davy, I reckon Polly Ann'd be
kinder surprised if she knew where we was. Eh?"

I nodded. It seemed strange, indeed, to be talking thus at such a place.
Life has taught me since that it was not so strange, for however a man
may strive and suffer for an object, he usually sits quiet at the
consummation. Here we were in the door-yard of a peaceful cabin, the
ground frozen in lumps under our feet, and it seemed to me that the wind
had something to do with the lightness of the night.

"Davy," whispered Tom again, "how'd ye like to see the little feller to
home?"

I pinched him again, and harder this time, for I was at a loss for
adequate words. The muscles of his legs were as hard as the strands of a
rope, and his buckskin breeches frozen so that they