retreat from the stockades should escape be attempted.

Close to the fort was the shining, yellow Saskatchewan; and for
miles, with a glass, you could see the bright coils of its leisurely
waters, as that proud river pierced its way through the great stretch
of plain till it became lost in the haze of the distance.

"If you were only upon the river in yonder flat boat," said Captain
Stephens, "you might drop quietly down to Battleford. The
reinforcement would come quite opportunely to Morrison."

"I do not care to leave here without giving the rebels a little of
our lead," the Inspector replied. "But even though I desired to do
so, now, the thing as you see is impossible."

Night fell, and when it came there was not a star in the sky. A
heavy mass of indigo-coloured cloud had risen before the set of sun,
in the south east, and crept slowly over the whole heavens, widening
its dark arms as it came. So when night fell there was not a point of
light to be seen anywhere in the heavens.

"It would seem," murmured one, "as if God were going to aid the
savages with His darkness."

Shortly after dark the wind began to wail like a tortured spirit
along the plain; and in the lull between the blasts the cry of
strange night-birds could be heard coining from each little thicket
of white oak or cottonwood.

Louder and louder grew the screaming of the tempest, and it shrieked