“By the use of my eyes, of course.  It is all simple; there are marks beside the beaten trail, as well as in its track, which prove clearly the party ahead of us to be moving westward, that it travelled rapidly, and was certainly not less than a hundred strong, with ponies and lodge-poles.  Not more than a league back we passed the evidences of a camp that had not been deserted longer than twelve hours; and when we crossed the river, a feather from a war-bonnet was lying in the grass.  These are small details, yet they tell the story.  That feather, for instance, was dropped from a Pottawattomie head-dress, and no doubt there are warriors among those Indians yonder who could name the chief who wore it.  It simply means, my lad, that the savages are gathering in toward Dearborn, and we may reach there all too late.”

“Is the way yet long?” and my eyes sought the horizon, where the sun hung like a red ball of fire.

“We should be there by the morrow,” he answered, “for we are now rounding the head of the Great Lake.  I wish to God I might see what fate awaits us there.”

Young and thoughtless as I was in those days, I could not fail to realize the depth of feeling which swayed this stern, experienced man; and I rode on beside him, questioning no more.

CHAPTER VI

FROM THE JAWS OF DEATH

I think it must be in the blood of all of New England birth to love the sea.  They may never have seen it, nor even heard its wild, stern music; yet the fascination of great waters is part of their heritage.  The thought of that vast inland ocean, of the magnitude and sublimity of which I had only the vaguest conception, haunted me all that afternoon; and I scarcely removed my eyes from those oddly constructed mounds of drifted sand, striving vainly to gain, through some depression between them, a fleeting glimpse of the restless waters that had helped to shape them into such fantastic forms.

As the sun sank, angry red in our faces, presaging a storm, the course of the little stream we had been following drew in closer toward these grotesque piles, and the trail we followed became narrower, with the sluggish current pressing upon one side and that odd bank of gleaming sand upon the other.  In a little open space, where quite a carpet of coarse yellowish grass had found lodgment, beneath the protecting shadow of a knot of cottonwoods, we finally made camp, and proceeded to prepare our evening meal.  Determined to strike north through those guarding sand-dunes, and reach the shore of the lake if possible before final darkness fell, I hastily crowded my pockets with food, and looked eagerly around for some congenial companion.  Captain Wells, whom I should have preferred to be with me, was deep in conference with one of the Miami chiefs, and not to be disturbed; Jordan had seemingly been detailed to the command of the night-guard; so, as a last resort, I turned aside and sought De Croix.  I found him seated cross-legged on a blanket beneath one of the cottonwoods, a silver-backed mirror propped against a tree-butt in his front, while the obsequious darkey was deliberately combing out his long hair and fashioning it anew.  The Frenchman glanced up at me with a welcoming smile of rare good-humor.