“Captain,” he exclaimed, clasping the officers hand warmly, and extending his other hand in greeting to the lady, “I am glad indeed to have reached you in time to be of service; and you, my own dear niece,—­may we yet be permitted to bring you safely back to God’s country.”

I was unable to catch the reply of either; but I noted that the lady flung her arms about the speaker’s neck and kissed his swarthy cheek.

Then Captain Wells spoke more loudly, so that his words reached my ears.

“But, Heald,” he said, “what means all this litter of garrison equipment lying scattered about?  Surely you have no present intention to leave the Fort, in face Of that savage mob out yonder?”

“’T is the orders of General Hull,” was the low; and somewhat hesitating response, “and the Pottawattomie chiefs have pledged us escort around the head of the lake.  But this is no place to discuss the matter.  As soon as possible I would speak with you more fully in my office.”

The look of undisguised amazement upon Wells’s face startled me; and as I glanced about me, wondering whom I might take counsel with, I was astonished to note the horse that Toinette had ridden standing with empty saddle.  De Croix, negligently curling his mustache between his slender fingers, gazed at me with a blank stare.

“Where is Mademoiselle?” I questioned anxiously, as he remained silent.  “Surely she was with us as we came in!”

“Pish! of course,” he returned carelessly; “if she chooses to dismount and rejoin her friends, what has that to do with John Wayland?  Cannot the girl so much as move without your permission, Monsieur?”

The words were insolent, not less than the manner that accompanied them.  Instantly there flashed upon me the thought that this Frenchman sought a quarrel with me; but I could conceive no reason therefor, and was not greatly disposed to accommodate him.

“’T was no more than curiosity that urged my question,” I answered, assuming not to notice his bravado.  “I was so deeply interested in other things as to have forgotten her presence.”

“Something no lady is ever likely to forgive,” he interjected.  “But what think you they propose doing with us here?”

As if in direct answer to his question, the young officer who had met us without now elbowed his way through the throng, until he stood at our horses’ heads.

“Gentlemen,” he said, with a quick glance into our faces, “dismount and come within.  There is but little to offer you here at Dearborn, we have been cut off from civilization so long; but such as we possess will be shared with you most gladly.”

De Croix chatted with him in his easy, familiar manner, as we slowly crossed the parade; while I followed them in silence, my thoughts upon the disappearance of Toinette and the Frenchman’s sudden show of animosity.  My glance fell upon the groups of children scattered along our path, and I wondered which among them might prove to be Roger Matherson’s little one.  At the entrance of one of the log houses fronting the parade,—­a rather ambitious building of two stories, if I remember rightly, with a narrow porch along its front,—­an officer was standing upon the step, talking with a sweet-faced woman who appeared scarce older than seventeen.