All this was done, and the remainder of the men descended to the court.  Captain Willoughby ordered the gate unbarred, when he passed outside, taking the direction towards the lifeless body, which still lay where it had fallen, at the foot of the stockades.  He was accompanied by Joyce and Jamie Allen, the latter carrying a spade, it being the intention to inter the savage as the shortest means of getting rid of a disagreeable object.  Our two old soldiers had none of the sensitiveness on the subject of exposure that is so apt to disturb the tyro in the art of war.  With sentinels properly posted, they had no apprehensions of dangers that did not exist, and they moved with confidence and steadily wherever duty called.  Not only was the inner gate opened and passed, but the outer also, the simple precaution of stationing a man at the first being the only safeguard taken.

When outside of the palisades, the captain and his companions proceeded at once towards the body.  It was now sunrise, and a rich light was illuminating the hill-tops, though the direct rays of the luminary had not yet descended to the valley.  There lay the Indian, precisely as he had fallen, no warrior having interposed to save him from the scalping-knife.  His head had reached the earth first, and the legs and body were tumbled on it, in a manner to render the form a confused pile of legs and blanket, rather than a bold savage stretched in the repose of death.

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed the captain, as the three approached the spot; “it is to be hoped Blodget’s bullet did its commission faithfully, else the fall must have hurt him sadly.”

“By Jove, ’tis nothing but a stuffed soldier!” cried Joyce, rolling the ingeniously contrived bundle over with his foot; “and here, the lad’s ball has passed directly through its head!  This is Injin deviltry, sir; it has been tried, in order to see whether our sentinels were or were not asleep.”

“To me, Joyce, it seems more like a white man’s clumsiness.  The fellow has been made to resemble an Indian, but people of our own colour have had a hand in the affair.”

“Well, sir, let that be as it may, it is lucky our youngster had so quick, an eye, and so nimble a finger.  See, your honour; here is the pole by which the effigy was raised to the top of the palisades, and here is the trail on the grass yet, by which his supporter has crept off.  The fellow seems to have scrambled along in a hurry; his trail is as plain as that of a whole company.”

The captain examined the marks left on the grass, and was of opinion that more than one man had been employed to set up the decoy figure, a circumstance that seemed probable in itself, when the weight of the image and the danger of exposure were remembered.—­Let that be as it might, he was rejoiced on reflection that no one was hurt, and he still retained the hope of being able to come to such an understanding with his invaders as to supersede the necessity of actual violence.