My lip trembled, for I was very hungry, and the rich steam from the hominy was as much as I could stand. Then the Colonel took me by the arms, as gently as a woman might, set me down on the ground beside him, and taking a spoonful of the hominy forced it between my lips. I was near to fainting at the taste of it. Then he took a bit himself, and divided the buffalo steak with his own hands. And when from the camp-fires they perceived the Colonel and the drummer boy eating together in plain sight of all, they gave a rousing cheer.
“Swein Poulsson helped get your breakfast, sir, and would eat nothing either,” I ventured.
“Davy,” said Colonel Clark, gravely, “I hope you will be younger when you are twenty.”
“I hope I shall be bigger, sir,” I answered gravely.
[CHAPTER XIV]
How the Kaskaskians were made Citizens
Never before had such a day dawned upon Kaskaskia. With July fierceness the sun beat down upon the village, but man nor woman nor child stirred from the darkened houses. What they awaited at the hands of the Long Knives they knew not,—captivity, torture, death perhaps. Through the deserted streets stalked a squad of backwoodsmen headed by John Duff and two American traders found in the town, who were bestirring themselves in our behalf, knocking now at this door and anon at that.
“The Colonel bids you come to the fort,” he said, and was gone.