Suppose the veteran, Wells, tired with the tramping, the trifling and the turmoil, mounted on the roof of the block-house at the northwest corner of the stockade, and in the shadow of its motionless flag, pausing, and looking about him--what does he see? [Illustration: WILLIAM WELLS.] A lonely, weedy streamlet flows eastward past the fort, then turns sharp to the right and makes its weak way by a shallow, fordable ripple, over a long sand-bar, into the lake, a half mile to the southward. At his feet, on the river bank, stands the United States Agency Storehouse. Across the river and a little to the eastward is the Kinzie house, built of squared logs by Jean Baptiste Pointe de Saible nearly forty years ago, now repaired, enlarged and improved by its owner and occupant, John Kinzie. A canoe lies moored to the bank in front of the house; when any of the numerous Kinzies wish to come to the fort they can paddle across; when any one wishes to go over he can halloo for the canoe. Just west of Kinzie's house is Ouillemette's cabin, and still further that of John Burns. Opposite Burns's place [near South State street] a swampy branch enters the river from the south, and on the sides of this branch there is a straggling lot of Indian wigwams--ominous sight! The north side of the river is all wooded, except where little garden-patches are cleared around the human habitations. The observer may see the forks of the stream a half-mile to the westward, but he cannot trace its branches, either "River Guarie," to the north, or "Portage River," to the south, for the trees hide them. Near him, to the west and south, sandy flats, grassy marshes and general desolation are all that he can see. (Will that barren waste ever be worth a dollar an acre?) Beyond, out of sight, past the bend of the South Branch, is Lee's place, with its fresh blood-stains and its two grassless graves. [Illustration: REBEKAH (WELLS) HEALD.] And so his eye wanders on, across the sandy flat, across the Indian trail, leading west of south, and the lake-shore trail which he himself came over, and finally rests with relief on the lake itself, the dancing blue water and the sky that covers it. It is said that he who is about to die has some times a "second sight," a gift of looking forward to the days that are to follow his death. Suppose the weary and anxious observer now to fall asleep, and in dreams to be gifted with this prophetic foresight, and to discern the change that four-score years are to bring.