The morning of August twelfth dawned with burning heat. The lake lay as smooth as a sea of glass and from the south-west came the dreaded wind of the prairies, hot as a blast from a furnace and laden with dust. The sun blazed pitilessly in a cloudless sky and countless Indians patrolled the Fort, the Agency House, and the trading station. The newcomers were alive with curiosity. Many of them had never seen the Fort before, and they swarmed in and out unceasingly. Through the wicket gate and the main entrance, past the soldiers' barracks, guard-house, hospital, storehouse, magazine, and contractor's store, back and forth between the officers' barracks, the Indians continually passed. They lay down on their faces to smell of the drain, muttered unintelligibly when they came to the subterranean passage, and wondered at the flag, with its fifteen stripes and fifteen stars, that hung limply at the staff. They openly defied the sentinels at the gate, climbed into the blockhouses, where they surreptitiously felt of the cannon and peered furtively into the muzzles, and even went into the officers' quarters. It was the kind of a visit that one makes to an occupied house, on the eve of taking possession. "Wallace," said Mrs. Franklin, "isn't there any way to keep these people out of the Fort?" "Why, I hadn't thought about it," returned the Captain, absently. "They're not doing any harm, are they?" "They haven't as yet," retorted Mrs. Franklin, with spirit, "but they're likely to at any moment. I don't want them in my house, and I won't have them here!" "Tell them so," laughed the Captain. "I have no doubt of the effectiveness of your request." "Don't make fun of me." "I'm not making fun of you, dear, but it is of the utmost importance that we do nothing to excite the Indians. If they think we are unfriendly, mischief may easily result. I suppose our houses and the Fort have the same interest for them that their wigwams and blankets had for us, when we first saw Indians. Personally, I have no objection whatever to their examining our weapons of offence and defence." Mrs. Franklin sighed. "When do we go?" she asked. "As soon as possible after the council, which will be held this afternoon. It takes time, however, to prepare sixty or seventy people for a long overland journey." "I wish we had boats." "So do I, but we haven't. Still, I don't know that we'd be any better off, at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, without guides, than we are here. There may be a trail from the river across to Detroit, but I don't know anything about it. Lieutenant Swearingen marched his company around by land, when the Fort was built. When we get to Fort Wayne, we'll either stay there, or go on to Detroit with a larger force. It depends upon the movements of the British." "Some way, Wallace, I'm afraid of trouble--I don't know why."