"The distant landscape and the dim blue hills that look down on the winding Hudson seemed calm and tranquil, the silence around us was intense, the hum of a little waterfall alone breaking the stillness of the autumn morning. "Poor Charley was like a madman, and it was in vain that I suggested to him that Treherne and the Delaware might have been compelled to make a long detour; that Ella might be ill and unable to travel on horseback, that her father might have returned, that Montgomery's advanced guard might be now far beyond the Missiskoui, that our scouts might have lost their way in going or in returning, not that I believed either possible for a moment, but I was glad to say anything that would serve to account for their delay, or soothe his gnawing anxiety; so in exceeding misery he returned to Fort St. John. The moment that morning parade was over he hastened to me again, and slowly the terrible day passed over, without tidings of Ella Carleton or her guides, and as night drew near I had almost to use force to prevent Halkett from setting out on foot for the old hunting-lodge on the Missiskoui, a place he could never have reached alone. "Suddenly we were roused, about sunset, by a shout from the picquet, and as we looked up, the Delaware stood before us--alone! "His aspect was fierce but weary; his hunting shirt was torn and bore traces of blood. His story was brief. They had been attacked by Indians in a deep gulley some miles distant, in the grey dawn of the morning; Treherne had been killed and the lady carried off! The Indian showed his wounds, and then claimed his reward. "Poor Halkett, on hearing of this catastrophe, fell, as if struck by a ball, and was laid on the hard bed of planks whereon the soldiers slept. He was in a delirium, yet passive and weak as a child. "So the hostile Indians were in our neighbourhood! I thought with horror of what the poor girl--on the eve of becoming a mother--might suffer at their merciless hands; and all her delicate beauty, her merry laugh, the singular combination of elegance and _espièglerie_ in her manner, came vividly back to memory, as I had seen her last, happy, radiant, and smiling, amid the glare and glitter of a garrison ball in the city of Montreal. "I questioned the Delaware closely; but his story was simple and unvarying, so he received food, rum, and the reward which Halkett had promised. "An irrepressible anxiety stole over me as night deepened, so taking my servant's musket and bayonet, I primed, loaded, and fixed a new flint with care; and proceeding to the distance of fifty yards in front of my line of sentinels, on the open space where the prairie grass grew thick and rank, I resolved to pass some hours there as an advanced sentinel.