At the foot of the ridge they found a second swamp, almost as difficult of passage as the first. And for the next few miles it was pretty much the same story, first a low ridge, then a stretch of black swamp. They were wet and mud-caked to their knees, and itched like fire in every exposed place, from the unending assaults of the eager mosquitoes. “Hungriest skeeters I ’bout ever seed,” averred Bill savagely. “Guess the pesky critters ain’t had a square meal in weeks.” They blundered on, however, and in the east came a faint dawn, a few fingers of pale gray. “Look!” cried Tom, pointing to a feeble light on the crest of a low hill that lay some distance ahead. “Injun campfire!” exclaimed Bill, carefully examining the pin-point of flame. As they crept warily forward, there came a dash of scarlet in the east, harbinger of the summer sun. Then the dash of scarlet grew to a blaze, and the wilderness turned from dark to daylight, swiftly and vividly. Swamp and hill were suffused with a red glow, wonderful to behold. By this time, the scouts had reached a clump of thick-growing willows that gave them an excellent point of vantage to scan the hill-top ahead. “Lucifer!” gasped Bill, “what a spot fer an ambush!” The cunning Sacs had indeed chosen a spot well-suited for ambuscade. Before reaching the rocky, U-shaped hill on which the Indians had taken position, the narrow trail passed between two impassable bogs that stretched away for a mile or more on either hand. Doubtless, the Sac strategy would be to let a part of the rangers pass through the swamp-gap unmolested. Then, from front and sides of the U-shaped hill, the bronze sharpshooters would pour in a withering fire of musket and rifle; and safely hidden themselves among the rocky coverts, they bade fair to annihilate the white detachment with paltry loss in their own ranks. Their savage hearts sang as they dreamed of a feast of scalps. “It’d be a death-trap!” said Tom. “The White Crow was leadin’ us like lambs to the slaughter!” grated Bill wrathily. “Just as you warned the Colonel, Bill. The Crow’s really hand in glove with Black Hawk.” “Course he is; so let’s git back to the rangers, fast as we kin leg it.” They had gone perhaps two miles on the back trail, when Tom Gordon came to a quick halt, at the edge of a wide, dangerous patch of morass. “Bill,” he burst out, “that Sac scout! the one we passed in the night!” “Thunderation, lad! the red rascal plumb slipped my mind. What a numbskull! It might’ve cost us our hair.” “Well, hadn’t we better--?” Tom broke off abruptly. A scream, wild and horrid, issued from the depths of the swamp ahead. As the two scouts froze in their tracks, it came again, agonized and unearthly; but this time trailing off into a choking, muffled gasp. Then all was ghastly silence. “Merciful Providence!” muttered the shaken boy, “what was that?” “Come,” said Bill Brown grimly, “we’ll find out.”