LONG before sunrise the “Maison Bondie” was awake and stirring. Early hours were the rule for travellers in those days on the frontier. While yet the earth was shrouded in shadow and the mists were drifting along the broad ribbon of the river, the sleepers on the bar-room floor were rolling up their blankets and making their hasty toilets before scattering to feed the mules and hitch them to the wagons preparatory for a start to Vincennes and the south. Half an hour later they returned to the bar room to devour the hasty yet heavy meal spread for them.
Jack and his party were astir as early as the rest—Jack and Cato because it was impossible to sleep later on the crowded floor, and Alagwa because of her keen anticipation of the coming day. Cato hurried out to see to the horses and to the mule that Jack had bought for him the night before, and Jack and Alagwa foregathered at the wash basins beneath the shed. Even earlier than the wagoners, they seated themselves at the rough table and hastily devoured the breakfast placed before them, impatient to be gone down the long trail that led to Fort Miami and to Detroit.
Tom Rogers was not to accompany them. In spite of Colonel Johnson’s assurances, Jack was by no means certain that either Alagwa or Captain Brito had left the vicinity of Wapakoneta. He was going to Detroit because that seemed the most promising thing to do, but he decided to send Rogers back to Wapakoneta to keep a sharp look-out for both the girl and the man.
“You’ll know what to do if you find the man,” he said, grimly, as he told Rogers good-by. “War has begun, and Captain Brito has no right to be in this country. If you find the girl, take her to Colonel Johnson and then get word to me as quick as you can.”
Amid many calls of adieu and bon voyage from the kindly French people the travellers set off. The sun was not yet up, but as the three cantered to the ford close beside the blockhouse, that frowned from the southwest corner of the fort, the morning gun boomed and the Stars and Stripes flung out to the breeze. An instant later, as the horses splashed through the shallow water, the sun thrust out through a gash in the clouds above the eastern forest, lighting up the snapping banner with its seventeen emblematic stars. A moment more, and the dew-studded fields began to glisten like diamonds, coruscating with many-colored fire, and the mists that lay along the river shredded and swirled in rainbow tints. The wind sprang up and the vast arch of the heavens thummed with reverberant murmurs, inarticulate voices of a world new born, thrilling with the ever-fresh hopes with which it had thrilled since the morning of time.
For a few miles the road ran through open fields that stretched along the north bank of the Maumee, a sunlit water strung with necklaces of bubbles that streamed away from the long grasses that lay upon its surface. A faint freshness rose like perfume from the stream, diffusing itself through the amber air. Here and there limbs of sunken trees protruded from the water, token of the great trunks submerged beneath its flood; round them castles of foam swelled and sank, chuckling away into nothingness.
Then came the forest, a mounting line stretching across the path. Fragrant at first and warm with the morning sun it swiftly closed in, dim and moist and cool, arching above the road and the heads of the travellers.
Side by side rode Jack and Alagwa. The girl’s heart was beating high, leaping in unison with the stride of the horse that bore her. Gone were the fancies and questionings of the night. For good or for ill she had sent the message to Tecumseh. She had kept faith with those who had cared for her for so many years. She had insured Jack’s safety so long as she should remain with him. It was all done and could not be undone. Some day, she knew, she must pay for it all, pay to the uttermost, but that day was not yet. Till it came she would forget. Resolutely she put all fear of the future behind her, living only in and for the moment.
Jack, too, was happy; the dawn worked its magic on him as it did the girl by his side. Youth, strength, and health jumped together in his veins. He did not know why he was happy. He was not prone to analyze his sensations. If he had thought of the fact at all he would probably have imagined that he was happy because he was going to the seat of war and because he hoped to find there the girl in search of whom he had come so many miles. It would not have occurred to him that he was rejoicing less in the coming end of his journey than he was in the journey itself. Nor would it have crossed his mind that he would have contemplated the journey itself with far less pleasure if he had been alone or had been accompanied only by Cato. He rejoiced in the company of his new boy chum without knowing that he did so.
And he had not thought of Sally Habersham for more than twenty-four hours!