The Captain was always chary of speech; now he rode onward with so stern a face, that presently I spoke in inquiry.
"You are silent, Captain Wells," I said. "One would expect some rejoicing, as we draw so close to the end of our long journey."
He glanced aside at me.
"Wayland," he said slowly, "I have been upon the frontier all my life, and have, as you know, lived in Indian camps and shared in many a savage campaign. I am too old a man, too tried a soldier, ever to hesitate to acknowledge fear; but I tell you now, I believe we are riding northward to our deaths."
I had known, since first leaving the Maumee, that danger haunted the expedition; yet these solemn words came as a surprise.
"Why think you thus?" I asked, with newly aroused anxiety, my thoughts more with the girl behind than with myself. "Mademoiselle Toinette tells me the Fort is strong and capable of defence, and surely we are already nearly there."
"The young girl yonder with De Croix? It may be so, if it also be well provisioned for a long siege, as it is scarce likely any rescue party will be despatched so far westward. If I mistake not, Hull will have no men to spare. Yet I like not the action of the savages about us. 'T is not in Indian nature to hold off, as these are doing, and permit reinforcements to go by, when they might be halted so easily. 'T would ease my mind not a little were we attacked."
"Attacked? by whom?"
He faced me with undisguised surprise, a sarcastic smile curling his grim mouth. His hand swept along the western sky-line.
"By those red spies hiding behind that ridge of sand," he answered shortly. "Boy, where are your eyes not to have seen that every step we have taken this day has been but by sufferance of the Pottawattomies? Not for an hour since leaving camp have we marched out of shot from their guns; it means treachery, yet I can scarce tell where or how. If they have spared us this long, there is some good Indian reason for it."