That night, while the sentries kept guard, Lieutenant Howard paced to and fro, as sleepless and as vigilant as they. Now and then parties of soldiers came through the gates with ammunition or liquor from the Agency, and piled it in front of the storehouse to await the Captain's orders. Throughout the night the contraband goods were transported, as quietly as possible, in order that the suspicions of the Indians might not be aroused. The Second in Command was in the midst of that battle with self which every man fights at least once in his life. The events of the past few days and his own part in them confronted him with persistent accusation. The prairie beyond the Fort and the figure of the Captain were etched upon his mental vision with the acid of relentless memory. The scales fell from his eyes at last, and he saw himself clearly--mutinous, insubordinate, unworthy of his office; distrusting his wife and alienating his friends. Conscience, too long asleep, awoke to demand such reparation as lay in his power to make. Ten minutes more and it would have been too late. Ten minutes more and the deadly tomahawk of an unseen foe would have been buried in the Captain's brain. That little space of time was all that stood between him and the command of Fort Dearborn--a command which he had planned to use in open rebellion against the orders of his superior officer. Cold sweat stood out upon his forehead, and his clenched hands trembled. Ten minutes more and he would have been a murderer in deed as well as in thought, though his hands would not have been stained and there would have been no proof of his guilt. The pine knots blazed fitfully in the crevices of the stockade, turning to a ghastly glare as daylight came on. "A murderer!" he said to himself over and over again; "a murderer!" He was like one who wakes from some horrible nightmare with the spell of it still upon him, and wondering yet if it is not true. Behind it all was a new emotion,--a new feeling for Katherine. Her hand had saved him. She had drawn him back from the brink of the abyss even as the ground was crumbling beneath his feet--Katherine, his wife, whom he had sworn to love and to cherish, and whom he had made miserable instead. To-morrow, or at most the day after, would see the end of it all. Two days remained in which to make atonement--two days, snatched from the past, to fulfil the promise of the future that once had seemed so fair. "All in, sir," said a soldier. "Not a box nor a barrel is left at the Agency. It's all there." He pointed to a pyramid in front of the storehouse, which was almost as high as the building itself. "No one saw you?" queried the Lieutenant. "No, sir; no one saw. One of the pickets has just come in, and he says, sir, that every blamed Injun is up in the north woods. There's been a dance going on all night." "Very well," answered the Lieutenant, carelessly; but his heart sank within him.