Clark turned sharply.

“Eh?” said he, “did you have a hand in this, too?”

“Peste!” cried the Captain, “the little ferret—­you call him—­he find me on the prairie.  I run to catch him with some men and fall into the crick—­” he pointed to his soaked leggings, “and your demons, they fall on top of me.”

“I wish to heaven you had caught Lamothe instead, Davy,” said the Colonel, and joined despite himself in the laugh that went up.  Falling sober again, he began to question the prisoner.  Where was Lamothe?  Pardieu, Maisonville could not say.  How many men did he have, etc., etc.?  The circle about us deepened with eager listeners, who uttered exclamations when Maisonville, between his answers, put up his hand to his bleeding head.  Suddenly the circle parted, and Captain Bowman came through.

“Ray has discovered Lamothe, sir,” said he.  “What shall we do?”

“Let him into the fort,” said Clark, instantly.

There was a murmur of astonished protest.

“Let him into the fort!” exclaimed Bowman.

“Certainly,” said the Colonel; “if he finds he cannot get in, he will be off before the dawn to assemble the tribes.”

“But the fort is provisioned for a month,” Bowman expostulated; “and they must find out to-morrow how weak we are.”

“To-morrow will be too late,” said Clark.

“And suppose he shouldn’t go in?”

“He will go in,” said the Colonel, quietly.  “Withdraw your men, Captain, from the north side.”

Captain Bowman departed.  Whatever he may have thought of these orders, he was too faithful a friend of the Colonel’s to delay their execution.  Murmuring, swearing oaths of astonishment, man after man on the firing line dropped his rifle at the word, and sullenly retreated.  The crack, crack of the Deckards on the south and east were stilled; not a barrel was thrust by the weary garrison through the logs, and the place became silent as the wilderness.  It was the long hour before the dawn.  And as we lay waiting on the hard ground, stiff and cold and hungry, talking in whispers, somewhere near six of the clock on that February morning the great square of Fort Sackville began to take shape.  There was the long line of the stockade, the projecting blockhouses at each corner with peaked caps, and a higher capped square tower from the centre of the enclosure, the banner of England drooping there and clinging forlorn to its staff, as though with a presentiment.  Then, as the light grew, the close-lipped casements were seen, scarred with our bullets.  The little log houses of the town came out, the sapling palings and the bare trees,—­all grim and gaunt at that cruel season.  Cattle lowed here and there, and horses whinnied to be fed.

It was a dirty, gray dawn, and we waited until it had done its best.  From where we lay hid behind log house and palings we strained our eyes towards the prairie to see if Lamothe would take the bait, until our view was ended at the fuzzy top of a hillock.  Bill Cowan, doubled up behind a woodpile and breathing heavily, nudged me.