Ada came back looking heated, weary and troubled. "O mother," she cried, with tears in her eyes, "we saw a cave where some Frenchmen were hiding from the Indians and got smoked to death; the Indians did it by building a fire at the cave's mouth, because they couldn't get at them to kill them some other way. Oh, I'm so afraid of the savages; do persuade father to take us all back to Ohio again!"
The mother soothed and comforted the frightened child with caresses and assurances of the present peaceable disposition of the Indians, and at length succeeded in so far banishing her fears that she was willing to proceed upon her journey.
However, the calm continuing, nearly a week passed and many excursions had been made to the island before they could quit its harbor.
At length one day directly after dinner, a favorable wind having sprung up, the good ship weighed anchor and pursuing her westward course passed out of the straits into Lake Michigan.
All night she flew before the wind and when our friends awoke the following morning she rode safely at anchor in the harbor of Chicago.
Though a large city now, it was then a town of less than five thousand inhabitants.
This was the port of the Queen Charlotte and her passengers must be landed, her cargo discharged.
It was with feelings of regret on both sides that her officers and the Keiths parted; Edward Wells taking an opportunity to say in an undertone to Mildred that he hoped they would sometime meet again.
St. Joseph, on the opposite side of the lake, was the next port whither the Keiths were bound. A much smaller vessel carried them across.