"Yes," I said, reluctantly; "we are wasting our strength to no purpose.
'T will be better to wait for daylight here."

It was a gloomy place, and the silence of those vast expanses of
desolate sand was overwhelming. It oppressed me strangely.

"Let me feel the touch of your hand," she said once. "It is so
desperately lonely. I have been on the wide prairie, at night and
alone; yet there is always some sound there upon which the mind may
rest. Here the stillness is like a weight."

Possibly I felt this depressing influence the more because of my long
forest training, where at least the moaning of limbs, fluttering of
leaves, or flitting of birds brings relief to the expectant senses;
while here all was absolute solitude, so profound that our breathing
itself was startling. The air above appeared empty and void; the earth
beneath, lifeless and dead. Although neither of us was cowardly of
heart, yet we instinctively drew closer together, and our eyes strained
anxiously over the black sand-ridges, now barely discernible through
the dense gloom. We tried to talk, but even that soon grew to be a
struggle, so heavily did the suspense rest upon our spirits, so
oppressed were we by imaginings of evil. I remember telling her my
simple story, gaining in return brief glimpses of her experiences in
Canada and the farther West. She even informed me that orders had been
received, the day before she became lost upon the lake, to abandon Fort
Dearborn; that an Indian runner--whom she named Winnemeg--had arrived
from General Hull at Detroit, bringing also news that Mackinac had
fallen.

"Doubtless your absence has greatly worried them also," I said.