wretched captive was aroused, by a faint but continued
yelling in a distant part of the forest, and in the
direction that had been taken by Wacousta and his warriors.
Then, after a short interval, came the loud booming of
the cannon of the fort, carried on with a spirit and
promptitude that told of some pressing and dangerous
emergency, and fainter afterwards the sharp shrill reports
of the rifles, bearing evidence the savages were already
in close collision with the garrison. Various were the
conjectures that passed rapidly through the mind of the
young officer, during a firing that had called almost
every Indian in the encampment away to the scene of
action, save the two or three young Ottawas who had been
left to guard his own person, and who lay upon the sward
near him, with head erect and ear sharply set, listening
to the startling sounds of conflict. What the motive of
the hurried departure of the Indians was he knew not;
but he had conjectured the object of the fierce Wacousta
was to possess himself of the uniform in which his wretched
servant was clothed, that no mistake might occur in his
identity, when its true owner should be exhibited in it,
within view of the fort, mangled and disfigured, in the
manner that fierce and mysterious man had already
threatened. It was exceedingly probable the body of
Donellan had been mistaken for his own, and that in the
anxiety of his father to prevent the Indians from carrying
it off, the cannon had been directed to open upon them.
But if this were the case, how were the reports of the
rifles, and the fierce yellings that continued, save at
intervals, to ring throughout the forest to be accounted