He was detailing a recent scandal of the French court, passing delicately over its more objectionable features, when I grasped the opportunity to slip unobserved from the room into the open of the parade-ground.  It proved a dark night without, but the numerous lights in the surrounding buildings, whose doors and windows were open, sufficiently illumined the place, so that I found my way about with little difficulty.  A group of soldiers lounged at the open door of the guard-house, and I paused a moment to speak with one, a curly-headed lad, who sat smoking, his back resting easily against the logs.

“Are the outer gates ever opened at night?” I asked.

He glanced up at me in surprise, shading his eyes to be assured of my identity before speaking.

“Scarcely either day or night now, sir,” he replied, respectfully, “but between sunset and sunrise they are specially barred, and a double guard is set.  No one can pass except on the order of Captain Heald.”

“In which direction is the Kinzie house?”

He pointed toward the northeast corner of the stockade.

“It is just over there, sir, across the river.  You might see the light from the platform; beyond the shed yonder is the ladder that leads up into the blockhouse.”

Thanking him, I moved forward as directed, found the ladder, and pushed my way up through the narrow opening in the floor of the second story.  The small square room, feebly lighted by a single sputtering candle stuck in the shank of a bayonet, contained half a dozen men, most of them idling, although two were standing where they could readily peer out through the narrow slits between the logs.  All of them were heavily armed, and equipped for service.  They looked at me curiously as I first appeared, but the one who asked my business wore the insignia of a corporal, and was evidently in command.

“I wish to look out over the stockade, if there is no objection.  I came in with Captain Wells’s party this afternoon,” I said, not knowing what their orders might be, or if I would be recognized.

“I remember you, sir,” was the prompt response, “and you are at liberty to go out there if you desire.  That is the door leading to the platform.”

“The Indians appear to be very quiet to-night.”

“The more reason to believe them plotting some fresh deviltry,” he answered, rising to his feet, and facing me.  “We never have much to disturb us upon this side, as it overhangs the river and is not easy of approach; but the guard on the south wall is kept pretty busy these last few nights, and has to patrol the stockade.  The Indians have been holding some sort of a powwow out at their camp ever since dark, and that ’s apt to mean trouble sooner or later.”

“Then you keep no sentry posted on the platform?” I asked, a thought suddenly occurring to me.

“Not regularly, sir; only when something suspicious happens along the river.  There ’s nobody out there now excepting the French girl,—­she seems to be fond of being out there all alone.”