If the young officers were delighted at the idea of escaping the horror of an eighteen miles drive, on one of the bitterest nights of the season, supperless, and at the moment of issuing from a comfortable ball-room, their annoyance at (what they termed) the pusillanimity of Raymond, who had come thus unnecessarily in, to the utter annihilation of their evening's amusement--was in equal proportion. For this, on their way home, they revenged themselves by every sort of persiflage their humor could adapt to the occasion, until in the end they completely succeeded in destroying the good humor of Raymond, who eventually quitted them under feelings of mortified pride, which excited all the generous sympathy of the younger Grantham, while it created in his breast a sentiment of almost wrath against his inconsiderate companions. Even these latter were at length sensible that they had gone too far, and, as their better feelings returned, they sought to assure the offended object of their pleasantry that what they had uttered was merely in jest; but finding he received these disclaimers in moody silence, they renewed their attack, nor discontinued it until they separated for their mutual quarters for the night. The following dawn broke in, decked with all the sad and sober grey peculiar to an American sky in the depth of winter, and, with the first rising of the almost rayless sun, commenced numerous warlike preparations, that gave promise to the inhabitants of some approaching crisis. The event justified their expectation; the suggestion of Colonel D'Egville had been adopted, and the same express which carried to General Proctor the information of the advance of the enemy, and the expulsion of Lieutenant Raymond from his post, was pushed on to Detroit, with an order for every man who could be spared from that fortress, to be marched without a moment's delay to Malden. At noon the detachment had arrived, and the General making his appearance soon after, the expedition, composed of the strength of the two garrisons, with a few light guns, and a considerable body of Indians, under the Chief Round-head, were pushed rapidly across the lake, and the same night occupied the only road by which the enemy could advance. It was a picturesque sight to those who lingered on the banks of the Detroit, to watch the movement of that mass of guns, ammunition, cars and sledges, preceding the regular march of the troops, as the whole crossed the firm but rumbling ice, at the head of the now deserted Island of Bois Blanc. Nor was this at all lessened in effect by the wild and irregular movements of the Indians, who, advancing by twos and threes, but more often singly, and bounding nimbly yet tortuously, along the vast white field with which the outline of their swarthy forms contrasted, called up at the outset, the idea of a legion of devils.