I turned abruptly from him, and strode forward across the sand-ridge out into the short prairie grass beyond, shaping my course westward by the stars.  However revengeful the Frenchman might feel at my plain speaking, I felt no hesitancy in trusting him to follow, as his life depended upon my guidance through the wilderness.

My mind by this time was fairly settled upon our first movement.  The only spot that gave promise of a safe survey of the Indian camp, where doubtless such prisoners as there were would be held, I felt sure would be found amid the shadows of the west bank of that southerly stream along which the lodges were set up.  From that vantage point, if from any, I should be able to judge how best to proceed on the perilous mission of rescue.

While we were feeling our way forward through the darkness, a great burst of flame soared high into the northern sky, the red light radiating far abroad over the prairie, until even our creeping figures cast faint shadows on the level plain.

“Saint Guise!  They have set fire to the Fort!” exclaimed De Croix, halting and gazing anxiously northward.

“Ay, either to that or to the agency building,” I answered.  “It was not there I expected to find the prisoners, but rather hidden among those black lodges yonder whence all the shouting comes.  ’T is torture, De Croix, which has so aroused those devils; and it will soon enough prove our turn to entertain them, if we linger long within this glare.”

“You have a plan, then?”

“Only a partial one at present,—­’t is to put the safeguard of the river between us and those yelling fiends.  Beyond that it will all be the guidance of God.”

The stream proved to be a narrow one, and the current was not swift.  We crossed it easily enough, without wetting our stock of powder, and found the western bank somewhat darkened by the numerous groups of small stunted trees that lined it.  I moved with extreme caution now, for each step brought us in closer proximity to those infuriated tribesmen who were holding mad carnival in the midst of their lodges.  I felt sure that our pathway along the western shore was clear, for the most astute chief among them would hardly look for the approach of enemies from that quarter; but I was enough of a frontiersman not to neglect any ordinary precautions, and so we crept like snakes along at the water’s edge, under the shadow of the bank, until much of the wild scene in the village opposite was revealed to our searching eyes.

It was a mad saturnalia, half light, half shadow, amid which the fierce figures of the painted warriors passed and repassed in drunken frenzy, making night hideous with savage clamor and frenzied gesticulations.  I would have crept on farther, seeking a place for crossing unobserved, had not De Croix suddenly grasped me by the leg.  As I turned, the play of the flames from across the water struck upon his white face, and I could read thereon a terror that held him motionless.