almost a lope; their arms swung back and forth in unison, the pat, pat
of their moccasined feet was like the steady drip of eaves from a summer
rain, the rustle of their passing bodies against the dense vegetation a
soft accompaniment. Autochthonous as they had appeared they disappeared.
Night and distance swallowed them up. But for a trampled, ruined
grainfield, the smouldering ruins of what had once been a house, the
glaring white of two naked bodies in the starlight against the
background of dark earth, it was as though they had not come. But for
this, and one other thing--a single sound, repeated again and again,
dulled, muffled as though coming from the earth itself.

"Daddy! Daddy! I want you." Then repeated with a throb in its depths
that spoke louder than words. "Daddy, come! I'm afraid!"




CHAPTER III


DISCOVERY

More than a mere name was Fort Yankton. Original in construction, as
necessity ever induces the unusual, it was nevertheless formidable. To
the north was a typical entrenchment with a ditch, and a parapet eight
feet high. To the east was a double board wall with earth tamped
between: a solid curb higher than the head of a tall man. Completing the
square, to the south and west stretched a chain of oak posts set close
together and pierced, as were the other walls of the stockade, by
numerous portholes. Within the enclosure, ark of refuge for settlers