The poor fellow was white as ashes. Not a man needed to ask him where
he was going, but they all answered in a breath and dashed after him.
They broke directly through the thicket on the opposite side of the
road, and came out into the tall prairie grass. They knew every path,
marais, and rigolé for miles around, and took their course eastward,
correctly judging that the Indians would follow the line of the bluffs
and go north. Splash went their horses among the reeds of sloughs and
across sluggish creeks, and by this short cut they soon came on the
fresh trail.

At Falling Spring they made a halt to rest the horses a few minutes,
and wash the red and yellow paint off their hands and faces; then
galloped on along the rocky bluffs up the Bottom lands. But after a
few miles they saw they had lost the trail. Closely scouting in every
direction, they had to go back to Falling Spring, and there at last
they found that the Indians had left the Bottom and by a winding path
among rocks ascended to the uplands. Much time was lost. They had
heard, while they galloped, the church bell tolling alarm in Cahokia,
and they knew how the excitable inhabitants were running together
at Beauvois' story, the women weeping and the men arming themselves,
calling a council, and loading with contempt a runaway bridegroom.

Gabriel and his men, with their faces set north, hardly glanced
aside to see the river shining along its distant bed. But one of them
thought of saying,--

"Paul and Jacques will have a long wait with the boat."

The sun passed over their heads, and sunk hour by hour, and set. The