The Indian’s step was noiseless, and his figure cast the merest shadow; but as we moved onward others constantly joined us, stalking out of the black night like so many phantoms, gliding silently in their noiseless moccasins across the soft grass, until fully a dozen spectral forms hedged our pathway and kept step to every movement.  It was a weird procession, through the shifting night-shadows; and although I could catch but fleeting glimpses of those savage faces and half-naked forms, the knowledge of their presence, and our own helplessness if they proved treacherous, caused my heart to throb till I could hear it in the painful silence like the beat of a drum.  Now and then a guttural voice challenged from the darkness, to be instantly answered by those in advance, and another savage glided within our narrowed vision, scanned us with cruel and curious eyes, and fell in with the same silent, tiger-like tread of his fellows.

It was not long that we were compelled to march thus, the gathering warriors pressing us closer at each step; and it was well it proved so soon ended, for the grim mockery set my nerves on edge.  Yet the change was hardly for the better.  Just before reaching the spot where the river forked sharply to the southward, we came to the upper edge of the wigwams, and into a bit of light from their scattered fires.  There rushed out upon us a wild horde of excited savages, warriors and squaws, who pushed us about in sheer delirium, and even struck viciously at us across the shoulders of our indifferent guard, so that it was only by setting my teeth that I held back from grappling with the demons.  But Heald, older in years and of cooler blood, laid restraining hands upon my arm.

“’T is but the riff-raff,” he muttered warningly.  “The chiefs will hold them back from doing us serious harm.”

As he spoke, Little Sauk uttered a gruff order, and the grim warriors on our flank drove back the jeering, scowling crowd, with fierce Indian cursing and blows of their guns, until the way had been cleared for our advance.  We moved on for two hundred yards or more, the maddened and vengeful mob menacing us just beyond reach of the strong arms, and howling in their anger until I doubted not their voices reached the distant Fort.

We came to a great wigwam of deer-skin, much larger than any I had ever seen, with many grotesque figures of animals sketched in red and yellow paint upon the outside, and clearly revealed by the blazing fire without.  A medicine-man of the tribe, hideous with pigment and high upstanding hair, sat beating a wooden drum before the entrance, and chanting wildly to a ferocious-looking horde of naked savages, many bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, who danced around the blaze, the leaping figures in the red glare making the scene truly demoniacal.  Little Sauk strode through the midst of them, unheeding the uproar, and flung aside the flap of the tent.

“White Chief and Long Knife wait here,” he said Sternly.  “Come back pretty soon.”