The wretchedness of that night who can tell! the despondency that filled the hearts of all, not so much in regard to the present as from apprehension for the future, who, untried in the same ordeal, can comprehend? but the feelings of the remnant of that little band, who were indebted for their safety to their own bravery, were not selfish. They lamented as deeply the fate of the fallen, as the dark and uncertain future that awaited themselves--uncertain because, although the chiefs had promised, and with sincerity, that they should be given up as prisoners of war at the nearest post, they had seen too much of the falsehood of the race generally to rely implicitly on its fulfilment by the warriors. Alas! where were their comrades--friends, nay, brothers of yesterday? Where was the brave, the noble-hearted Wells--where the once gay, ever high-spirited Ronayne--where poor Von Voltenberg--the manly Sergeant Nixon, a Virginian also--the faithful Corporal Green--and nearly two thirds of the privates of the detachment? The very fact of being in the fort again, and everywhere surrounded by objects rendering more striking the contrast between the past and the present, was agony in itself. There was scarcely a man among them who would not have preferred bivouacking, in the wild wood, amid storm and tempest, and the howling of beasts of prey, to resting that night within the polluted precincts of what had so recently been their safeguard and their pride. Fortunately, the two surviving officers were, in some measure, exempt from these mortifications. True to his word, Winnebeg had caused Mrs. Headley and Mrs. Elmsley to be conveyed undercover of the darkness from their place of concealment to the mansion of Mr. McKenzie, which, from the great popularity of the trader with the whole of the Indian tribes, had been left untouched--he himself having been looked upon as a non-combatant, and, therefore, spared from all personal outrage. The meeting between the husbands and their wives--both the former also slightly wounded during the day--was, as may be supposed, most affecting. Neither had ever expected, on parting in the morning, to behold each other; and now, although more or less injured, to find those who were preserved, as it were, by a miracle from a cruel death, with a prospect of future happiness, the past was for the moment forgotten, and gratitude to God for their preservation the dominant feeling of their souls. The examination of the wounds of the heroines was the next consideration. Most fortunate was it that of all the wounds received by the ladies--seven by Mrs. Headley and three by Mrs. Elmsley--not one was of a nature to disable or impede the motion of their lower limbs. A ball that had lodged in her arm, however, gave the former great pain; but, alas! there was no Von Voltenberg to cut it out. In this extremity, Winnebeg said he knew an Indian who was very expert at incision, and that he would procure his attendance.