In all this wide survey from the little knoll on which the Fort stood, five houses only were visible.  These were built roughly of logs in the most primitive style of the frontier, and, with a single exception, were now deserted by their occupants, who had retreated for safety to the stockade of the Fort.  The single exception was the larger and more ambitious dwelling standing on the north bank of the river, occupied by John Kinzie and his family, himself an old-time Indian trader, whose honesty and long dealing with the savages had made him confident of their friendship and fidelity.  At one time, however, so threatening had become the strange bands that flocked in toward Dearborn, as crows to a feast, he also deserted his home, and, with those dependent upon him, sought refuge within the Fort walls; but, influenced by the pledge of the Pottawattomies, and believing that safety lay in trusting to their friendship, they had returned to their own house.  The other cabins were scattered to the westward of the stockade, close to the river bank.  These dwellings had been occupied by the families of Ouilmette, Burns, and Lee, respectively; while the last named owned a second cabin, built some distance up the south branch of the river, and occupied by a tenant named Liberty White.

The prospect was in truth depressing to one accustomed to other and more civilized surroundings.  A spirit of loneliness, of fearful isolation, seemed to hover over the restless waters upon the one hand, and those vast silent plains on the other; sea and sky, sky and sand, met the wearied eye wherever it wandered.  The scene was unspeakably solemn in its immensity and loneliness; while irresistibly the thought would wander over those fateful leagues of prairie and forest that stretched unbrokenly between this far frontier and the few scattered and remote settlements that were its nearest neighbors.

It was not until some time later that these sombre reflections pressed upon me with all their force.  After the excitement of our first boisterous greeting was over, and I found opportunity to lean across the top of the guarded stockade and gaze alone over the desolate spectacle I have endeavored to describe, I could feel more acutely the hopelessness of our situation and the danger threatening us from every side.  But at the moment of our entrance, all my interest and attention had been centred upon the scenes and persons immediately about me.  It was my first experience within the stockaded walls of an armed government post.  The scene was new to my young senses, and, in spite of the excitement that still heated my blood, I looked upon it with such absorbing interest as to be forgetful for the moment even of the fair girl who rode in at my side.

The dull clang of the heavy iron-bound gate behind us was a welcome sound after the fierce buffetings of our perilous passage; yet it only partially shut off the savage howlings, while above the hideous uproar came the sharp reports of several guns.  But the instant bustle and confusion within scarcely allowed opportunity to notice this disorder; moreover, there had come to us a sense of safety and security,—­we were at last within the barriers we had struggled so long to gain.  However the savage hordes might rage without, we were now beyond their reach, and might take breath again.