With characteristic gallantry, De Croix had at once been attracted toward Lieutenant Helm’s young and pretty bride, and they two had already forgotten all sense of existing peril in a most animated discussion of the latest fashionable modes in Montreal.  I was not a little amused by the interest manifest in her soft blue eyes as she spoke with all the art of a woman versed in such mysteries, and at the languid air of elegance with which he bore himself.  Meanwhile, I answered as best I might the flood of questions addressed to me by the two officers, who, having been shut out from the world so long, were naturally eager for military news from Fort Wayne and from the seat of government.  As these partially ceased, I asked:  “Has a date been set for the abandonment of the Fort?”

“We march out upon the fifteenth,” was Helm’s reply, “the day after to-morrow, unless something occurs meanwhile to change Captain Heald’s plans.  I confess I dread its coming, much as I imagine a condemned man might dread the date of his execution,” and his grave eyes wandered toward his young wife, as if fearful his words might be overheard by her.  “There are other lives than mine endangered, and their peril makes duty doubly hard.”

“Lieutenant,” I said, recalled to my own mission by these words, “I myself am seeking to be of service to one here,—­the young daughter of one Roger Matherson, an old soldier who died at this post last month.  He was long my father’s faithful comrade in arms, and with his dying breath begged our care for his orphan child.  It has come to us as a sacred trust, and I was despatched upon this errand.  Can you tell me where this girl is to be found?”

Before he could frame a reply, for he was somewhat slow of speech, his wife, who had turned from De Croix, and was listening with interest to my story, spoke impulsively.

“Why, we have been wondering, Mr. Wayland, where she could have gone.  Not that we have worried, for she is a girl well able to care for herself, and of a most independent spirit.  She disappeared very suddenly from the Fort several days ago; we supposed she must have gone with my mother when Mr. Kinzie took his family back to their home.”

“With Mr. Kinzie?” I questioned, for at that moment I could not recall hearing the name.  “May I ask where that home is?”

“He is the very good step-father of my wife, and one she loves as truly as if he were her own father,” answered Helm, warmly; “a man among a thousand.  Mr. Kinzie is an Indian trader, and has been here for several years, if indeed he be not the first white settler, for old Pointe Au Sable was a West Indian mulatto.  His relations with these savages who dwell near the Great Lake, and especially those of the Pottawattomie and Wyandot tribes, are so friendly that he has felt safe to remain with his family unguarded in his own home.  They have always called him Shaw-nee-aw-kee, the Silver-man, and trust him as much