This north country was infested with Indians, allies of the English and
friends of the French their subjects; and the fact was never for an
instant absent from our minds that our little band might at any moment
run into a thousand warriors, be overpowered and massacred; or, worst of
all, that our coming might have been heralded to Kaskaskia.
For three days we marched in the green shade of the primeval wood, nor
saw the sky save in blue patches here and there. Again we toiled for
hours through the coffee-colored waters of the swamps. But the third
day brought us to the first of those strange clearings which the French
call prairies, where the long grass ripples like a lake in the summer
wind. Here we first knew raging thirst, and longed for the loam-specked
water we had scorned, as our tired feet tore through the grass. For
Saunders, our guide, took a line across the open in plain sight of any
eye that might be watching from the forest cover. But at length our
column wavered and halted by reason of some disturbance at the head of
it. Conjectures in our company, the rear guard, became rife at once.
"Run, Davy darlin,' an' see what the throuble is," said Terence.
Nothing loath, I made my way to the head of the column, where Bowman's
company had broken ranks and stood in a ring up to their thighs in the
grass.
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