And so I sat upon my knees and whispered to the Indians about me. They whispered in turn, and soon three hundred men were waked and ready.
Yet the forest scarcely rustled.
I motioned, and the line started. We crept some twenty paces from tree to tree. Then ahead of us I saw an opening. I could distinguish the outlines of a rough redoubt.
I stepped in front and stopped a moment. It had grown light enough for me to see the faces of the Sac warriors. Dirt-crusted, red-eyed, wolfish, they awaited my signal.
I raised my sword. "Ready!" I called. An inferno of yells arose. We ran at the top of our speed. We charged the stake-built redoubt with knives in hands. Mingled with our war cry I heard the screams of the awakening camp.
I reached the palings. They were of bass wood, roughly split and tough. I could not scale them with my lame shoulder. I seized a hatchet from an Indian, struck the stakes, wrenched one free, and climbed through the hole.
The camp was in an uproar. A few Sacs had scaled the redoubt ahead of me, and one of them was grappling with a Seneca just in my path. I dodged them and ran on. Behind me I heard the terrible roar of the blood-hungry army.
I fought my way on. Warriors and slaves rose before me and screamed at my knife, and at something that was in my face. I did not touch them. I had to find the woman. She might be hiding in one of the huts. But there were many bark huts, and all alike. I ran on.
The air was thickening with powder smoke, and the taste of blood was in my throat. A hatchet whistled by me and cut the cloth from my shoulder. I saw the Seneca who threw the hatchet, but I would not stop. Corpses were in my way. Twice I slipped in blood and went to my knees.
I must search each lodge, each group. I had seen nothing that looked like a woman.