"And the Fort?" he asked, anxiously. "Is it still garrisoned, or have we come too late?"
"It was safely held two days ago," she answered, "although hundreds of savages in war-paint were then encamped without, and holding powwow before the gate. No attack had then been made, yet the officers talked among themselves of evacuating."
For a moment the stern soldier seemed to have forgotten her, his eyes fastened upon the western horizon.
"The fools!" he muttered to himself, seemingly unconscious that he spoke aloud; "yet if I can but reach there in time, my knowledge of Indian nature may accomplish much."
He turned quickly, with a sharp glance over his military force.
"We delay no longer. Jordan, do you give this lady your horse for to-day's journey, and go you forward on foot with the Miamis. Watch them closely, and mark well everything in your front as you move."
"But, Captain Wells," she insisted, as he turned away, "I am exceedingly hungry, and doubt not this youth would also be much the better for a bit of food."
"It will have to be eaten as you travel, then," he answered, not unkindly, but with all his thought now fixed on other things, "for our duty is to reach Dearborn at the first moment, and save those prisoned there from death, and worse."
I shall always remember each detail of that day's march, though I saw but little of Toinette save in stolen glances backward, Wells keeping me close at his side, while De Croix, as debonair as ever, was her constant shadow, ministering assiduously to her wants and cheering her journey with agreeable discourse. I heard much of their chatter, earnestly as I sought to remain deaf to it. To this end Wells aided me but little, for he rode forward in stern silence, completely absorbed in his own thoughts.
During the first few hours we passed through a dull desolation of desert sand, the queerly shaped hills on either side scarcely breaking the dead monotony, although they often hid from our sight our advance scouts, and made us feel isolated and alone. Once or twice I imagined I heard the deepening roar of waves bursting upon the shore-line to our right, but could gain no glimpse of blue water through those obscuring dunes. We were following a well-worn Indian trail, beaten hard by many a moccasined foot; and at last it ran from out the coarser sand and skirted along the western beach, almost at the edge of the waves. 'T was a most delightful change from the cramped and narrowed vision that had been ours so long. Our faces were now set almost directly northward; but I could not withdraw my eyes from the noble expanse of water heaving and tumbling in the dazzling sunlight. Indeed, there was little else about our course to attract attention; the shore in front lay clear and unbroken, bearing a sameness of outline that wearied the vision; each breaking wave was but the type of others that had gone before, and each jutting point of land was the picture of the next to follow. To our left, there extended, parallel to our course of march, a narrow ridge of white and firmly beaten sand, as regular in appearance as the ramparts of a fort. Here and there a break occurred where in some spring flood a sudden, rush of water had burst through. Glancing curiously down these narrow aisles, as we rode steadily onward, I caught fleeting glimpses of level prairie land, green with waving grasses, apparently stretching to the western horizon bare of tree or shrub. At first, I took this to be water also; until I realized that I looked out upon the great plains of the Illinois.