Cold sweat stood out upon his forehead, and his clenched hands trembled. Ten minutes more and he would have been a murderer in deed as well as in thought, though his hands would not have been stained and there would have been no proof of his guilt. The pine knots blazed fitfully in the crevices of the stockade, turning to a ghastly glare as daylight came on. "A murderer!" he said to himself over and over again; "a murderer!" He was like one who wakes from some horrible nightmare with the spell of it still upon him, and wondering yet if it is not true.
Behind it all was a new emotion,—a new feeling for Katherine. Her hand had saved him. She had drawn him back from the brink of the abyss even as the ground was crumbling beneath his feet—Katherine, his wife, whom he had sworn to love and to cherish, and whom he had made miserable instead. To-morrow, or at most the day after, would see the end of it all. Two days remained in which to make atonement—two days, snatched from the past, to fulfil the promise of the future that once had seemed so fair.
"All in, sir," said a soldier. "Not a box nor a barrel is left at the Agency. It's all there." He pointed to a pyramid in front of the storehouse, which was almost as high as the building itself.
"No one saw you?" queried the Lieutenant.
"No, sir; no one saw. One of the pickets has just come in, and he says, sir, that every blamed Injun is up in the north woods. There's been a dance going on all night."
"Very well," answered the Lieutenant, carelessly; but his heart sank within him.
"Mad Margaret was there, too, sir—she was havin' one of her spells."
"Well," said the Lieutenant, sharply, "what of it?"
"Nothing, sir—excuse me, sir." The soldier saluted and went away.