At length a bright streak appeared across the eastern sky. The light increased, and it was with a sigh of heart-felt relief, when at last, being able to see across the prairie, he discovered that not a single object was moving over its broad expanse.
“It is as I thought, then,” he said to himself; “the Blackfeet have deemed it prudent not to show themselves until they can catch us off our guard. We shall have, I trust, a day’s rest, and by the evening my boys and their brave friends will have returned; and even should poor Keith have met with disaster, Burnett may send us reinforcements from Edmonton. I pray that the savages have not paid a visit to Harvey’s station, or it may have gone hard with him. Now I may go down and console Mrs Mackintosh and the girls, and get some breakfast;” and the gallant Captain, having again charged the sentries to keep on the alert, returned to his house.
The day wore on, and had it not been for Jacques Robe’s positive assertion that he had escaped from an unusually large body of Blackfeet, it might have been supposed that there was no cause for alarm.
Not even a buffalo or deer appeared. That, however, was not unusual; indeed, the only cause to create suspicion was that no traders, either Indians or others, arrived at the fort.
Noon had passed, and had Jules Buffet ridden as fast as he proposed, Loraine and his companions might soon return. Still they did not appear.
Sybil and Effie frequently went to the southern platform to look out, but returned each time disappointed.
Captain Mackintosh, who had gone to the top of the look-out tower, swept with his telescope the horizon to the south and west, towards which the glowing sun was once more sinking.
As he looked, he fancied that he could detect objects moving above the tall grass, embrowned with the tints of autumn. If they were Indians they probably did not suppose that they could be discovered at so great a distance. They might, indeed, have been only a herd of deer scampering across the plain. Still, as he looked again and again through his glass, he fancied that he could distinguish the plumed heads and shoulders of Indian warriors.
“They shall not catch us napping, at all events,” he said to himself; “and I trust to Heaven to enable us to make good use of the means at our disposal.”
He was unwilling to leave his post, while there was sufficient daylight to give him a chance of ascertaining whether the objects he saw were mounted Indians or not: he knew that at such a distance men on foot could not possibly be seen. He had much less to fear from men on horseback than from the stealthy approach of savages on foot, who might creep up almost unperceived close to the walls.