together, and a faint shouting borne on the light wind.  Terrorized, I sought for shelter.  A pile of brush underlain by ashes was by, and I crept into that.  The sounds continued, but seemed to come no nearer, and my courage returning, I got out again and ran wildly through the camp toward the briers on the creek, expecting every moment to be tumbled headlong by a bullet.  And when I reached the briers, what between panting and the thumping of my heart I could for a few moments hear nothing.  Then I ran on again up the creek, heedless of cover, stumbling over logs and trailing vines, when all at once a dozen bronze forms glided with the speed of deer across my path ahead.  They splashed over the creek and were gone.  Bewildered with fear, I dropped under a fallen tree.  Shouts were in my ears, and the noise of men running.  I stood up, and there, not twenty paces away, was Colonel Clark himself rushing toward me.  He halted with a cry, raised his rifle, and dropped it at the sight of my queer little figure covered with ashes.

“My God!” he cried, “it’s Davy.”

“They crossed the creek,” I shouted, pointing the way, “they crossed the creek, some twelve of them.”

“Ay,” he said, staring at me, and by this time the rest of the guard were come up.  They too stared, with different exclamations on their lips,—­Cowan and Bowman and Tom McChesney and Terence McCann in front.

“And there’s a great camp below,” I went on, “deserted, where a thousand men have been.”

“A camp—­deserted?” said Clark, quickly.

“Yes,” I said, “yes.”  But he had already started forward and seized me by the arm.

“Lead on,” he cried, “show it to us.”  He went ahead with me, travelling so fast that I must needs run to keep up, and fairly lifting me over the logs.  But when we came in sight of the place he darted forward alone and went through it like a hound on the trail.  The others followed him, crying out at the size of the place and poking among the ashes.  At length they all took up the trail for a way down the creek.  Presently Clark called a halt.

“I reckon that they’ve made for the Ohio,” he said.  And at this judgment from him the guard gave a cheer that might almost have been heard in the fields around the fort.  The terror that had hovered over us all that long summer was lifted at last.

You may be sure that Cowan carried me back to the station.  “To think it was Davy that found it!” he cried again and again, “to think it was Davy found it!”

“And wasn’t it me that said he could smell the divils,” said Terence, as he circled around us in a mimic war dance.  And when from the fort they saw us coming across the fields they opened the gates in astonishment, and on hearing the news gave themselves over to the wildest rejoicing.  For the backwoodsmen were children of nature.  Bill Cowan ran for the fiddle which he had carried so carefully over the mountain, and that night we had jigs and reels on the common while the big fellow played “Billy of the Wild Woods” and “Jump Juba,” with all his might, and the pine knots threw their fitful, red light on the wild scenes of merriment.  I must have cut a queer little figure as I sat between Cowan and Tom watching the dance, for presently Colonel Clark came up to us, laughing in his quiet way.