I had known, since first leaving the Maumee, that danger haunted the expedition; yet these solemn words came as a surprise. "Why think you thus?" I asked, with newly aroused anxiety, my thoughts more with the girl behind than with myself. "Mademoiselle Toinette tells me the Fort is strong and capable of defence, and surely we are already nearly there." "The young girl yonder with De Croix? It may be so, if it also be well provisioned for a long siege, as it is scarce likely any rescue party will be despatched so far westward. If I mistake not, Hull will have no men to spare. Yet I like not the action of the savages about us. 'T is not in Indian nature to hold off, as these are doing, and permit reinforcements to go by, when they might be halted so easily. 'T would ease my mind not a little were we attacked." "Attacked? by whom?" He faced me with undisguised surprise, a sarcastic smile curling his grim mouth. His hand swept along the western sky-line. "By those red spies hiding behind that ridge of sand," he answered shortly. "Boy, where are your eyes not to have seen that every step we have taken this day has been but by sufferance of the Pottawattomies? Not for an hour since leaving camp have we marched out of shot from their guns; it means treachery, yet I can scarce tell where or how. If they have spared us this long, there is some good Indian reason for it." I glanced along that apparently desolate sandbank, barely a hundred feet away, feeling a thrill of uneasiness sweep over me at the revelation of his words. My eyes saw nothing strange nor suspicious; but I could not doubt his well-trained instinct. "It makes my flesh creep," I admitted; "yet surely the others do not know. Hear how the Frenchman chatters in our rear!" "The young fool!" he muttered, as the sound of a light laugh reached us; "it will prove no jest, ere we are out of this again. Yet, Wayland," and his voice grew stronger, "the red devils must indeed mean to pass us free,--for there is Fort Dearborn, and, unless my sight deceive me, the flag is up." I lifted my eyes eagerly, and gazed northward where his finger pointed. CHAPTER X A LANE OF PERIL We passed a group of young cottonwoods, the only trees I had noted along the shore; and a few hundred feet ahead of us, the ridge of sand, which had obscured our westward view so long, gradually fell away, permitting the eye to sweep across the wide expanse of level plain until halted by a distant row of stunted trees that seemed to line a stream of some importance. As Captain Wells spoke, my glance, which had been fixed upon these natural objects, was instantly attracted by a strange scene of human activity that unfolded to the north and west.