“Concussion of the brain,” he said, at last. “He’ll get well, but he’ll be ill for weeks and probably for months.” CHAPTER XVI THE drama of the war was unfolding. The first act was filled with martial music and with the tramp of armed men marching northward to wrest from the British king the remainder of his great American empire and to extend the bounds of the United States to the foot of the aurora borealis. War had been declared in the middle of June and the late summer of 1812 saw three armies afoot, one at the western end of Lake Erie, one at Niagara, and one on Lake Champlain. The first clash of arms came in the west. Burning with zeal, General Hull and his soldiers cut a road through the Black Swamp, occupied Detroit, and early in July crossed into Canada. The country rang with the news of their triumphant advance. The country did not realize, though it was soon to do so, that for years the British in Canada had been providing against this very eventuality, and had been building a red bulwark against attack. For years they had been winning the good will of the Indians with presents, had been cajoling them with soft words, and had been providing them with arms and ammunition. And when the war came they had their reward. While Hull was marching so gaily forward thousands of savages were closing in behind him, surrounding him with a red cordon that he was never to break. At first they moved slowly, lacking a white leader. Soon they were to find one in General Brock and the Americans were to realize too late that they had to meet not merely a handful of British and Canadians but a horde of the fiercest foes that any land could produce, some of whom, like Tecumseh, hoped to establish an Indian kingdom whose barriers would hold back the Americans forever, but most of whom fought merely for the spoils of war, secure in the British promise to give them a free hand and to protect them against any ultimate vengeance like that which had befallen them when they had risen in the past. All this, however, lay in the womb of the future in July and early August, when Jack was slowly fighting his way back to health. The wound on his head healed rapidly, disappearing even before that on Cato’s thick skull, and by the first of August he had recovered much of his physical strength though little of his mental powers. One day he would look out upon the world with sane eyes, gladdening Alagwa’s sore heart with the hope that her vigil was nearing its end; the next day some trifle, some slight excitement, even some memory, would strike him down, and for days he would toss in delirium or lie in a state of coma that seemed like death itself. It needed all the cheeriness that Fantine could muster and all the assurances that Major Stickney and Captain Wells could offer to sustain the girl’s hope that he would ever be himself again.