A STUMBLE IN THE DARK

Gloomy as the hole was, there was no help for it.  I could perceive nothing below, not even my hand when held within a foot of my eyes; nor had I the slightest previous knowledge of the place to guide me, even had not the fire ruins above effectually blocked every passage-way with fallen debris.  Listening however intently, my ears could distinguish only the faint lapping of the river as it crept about the log piling on which the house had been built; but beyond this dim guidance, I had to feel my way forward with extended hands and groping feet.  Swinging to my back the rifle that De Croix had brought, and casting an inquiring glance backward at the little group huddled upon the bank, almost invisible even at that short distance, I grasped the piling nearest me and slid down into the unknown darkness.

My feet found solid earth, although as I reached out toward the left my moccasin came in contact with water, which told me at once that only a narrow path divided the steep bank of the excavation from the encroaching river.  The floor above was originally low, so that I could easily touch the heavy supporting beams; and I had felt my way scarcely a yard before coming in contact with a serious obstruction, where the weakened floor had sagged so as almost to close the narrow passage.  This caused me to wade farther out into the water, testing each step carefully as I followed the sharp curving of the shore-line.  I had no fear of meeting any living enemy within that silent cave, my sole doubt being as to whether the half-breed chief had fulfilled his promise and brought the boat, my gravest anxiety to discover it early and get my party safely away before the Indian encampment learned the truth.

I must have reached the apex of the little cove, moving so cautiously that not a ripple of the water revealed my progress, and feeling for each inch of way like a blind man along city streets, when my knee suddenly struck some obstacle, and seeking to learn what it might be, I muttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving as I touched the unmistakable sides of a boat.  It was a lumping, awkward craft, rudely fashioned, yet of a seeming length of keel and breadth of beam that set my heart beating with new joy, as I wondered if it was not the same craft in which the Kinzie family put forth upon the lake the morning of the massacre.  This seemed very likely, for there could hardly be two such boats at hand, where the Indian water-craft were slender, fragile canoes, poorly fitted for serious battle with lake waves.  Doubtless this was the only vessel Sau-ga-nash could find suitable for the venture, or he would never have chosen it for the use of a single man, as it was of a size to require the services of several paddles.  Yet the thought meant much; for this very lack of water-craft was likely to render pursuit by the baffled savages impossible, if only once we got fairly away from the shore.