Jack nodded and changed his course, heading sharply in to the shore half a mile down river from the camp and village. Half he expected to be saluted by a volley of musket balls or to be met by a horde of ambushed savages. Luckily, however, no enemy appeared.
Cautiously the three landed and moved northward along the river, following a road that led toward the village. When the lights were very near, Rogers and Cato drew aside to wait, and Jack went on alone.
Soon he found himself in the thick of the Indian village. No one challenged him or questioned him. Dozens of other men dressed exactly as he was were passing along the many paths trampled in the snow. No British were visible, and he guessed that they confined themselves to the limits of the fort, whose dark bulk rose above the houses of the village. But Indians were everywhere. Seven thousand of them, many with women and children, had gathered there, absolutely swamping the small village that had once surrounded the fort. Dozens of French “habitans” wandered through the streets. Nowhere could Jack see the least sign of panic of which General Winchester had spoken so jubilantly.
The white settlement was small and Jack had no difficulty in picking out the house where Alagwa dwelt. It was larger and better built than most of those that stood near it. Lights shone through several of its windows.
Jack went up to the door, intending to ask flatly for Alagwa, hoping that the boldness of his demand might gain him admission to her presence. His knock, however, though twice repeated, brought no response. Hesitatingly he tried the door, and it opened easily, disclosing a dim hall with a brightly lighted sitting room opening from it on the left. For a moment he hesitated; then stepped inside. He had no time to lose; if Alagwa was in the house he must find her; if she was not in it he must search elsewhere.
The sitting room proved to be vacant, and a glance through the open door into the dining-room just behind it showed that this too was untenanted. But as Jack turned back toward the hall, intending to seek upstairs, he heard a rattling at the lock of the outer door. Swiftly he glanced about him; then as swiftly he slipped back into the sitting room and hid behind the long heavy curtains that veiled the windows.
The next instant the door opened and a girl came in. At sight of her Jack’s heart gave a sudden bound and then stood still.
It was Alagwa. And yet it was not she! Gone were the boyish garments that he had known so well, and with them had gone the slim boyish figure and the careless boyish carriage. The girl did not wear even the Indian costume that he had expected; from head to foot she was clothed in the garments of the whites.
And her face! Jack gasped as his eyes rose to it. The several features he knew—the dark splendid starry eyes, the clustering curls, the red lips, the olive cheeks in which the color came and went. They were all there, but with them was something else, an indefinable something that he had never seen before. Marvelling, he gazed, till doubt began to grow in his mind. Could this indeed be she—be his little comrade of the trails, she who had fought for him, she who had nursed him, she who had pledged herself to him for better or for worse? Could she have changed into this dazzling being, this maiden like and yet unlike the “sweet gentle ladies” he had known all his life, this being adorable from the tips of her tiny boots to the last riotous curl of her hair?
He was about to sweep the curtains aside and step forth when the half-closed door behind her was flung open and an officer in a red coat, with a long military cloak trailing from his shoulder, strode into the room.