"Wait till next fall's wagon trains come in!" That was the expression of our new governor, Mr.Applegate; and I fancy it found an echo in the opinions of most of the Americans.

By snowfall, as we believed, the balance of power would be all upon our side, and our swift-moving rifles would outweigh all their anchored cannon.
I was almost at my cabin door at the edge of the forest frontage at the rear of the old post, when I caught glimpse, in the dim light, of a hurrying figure, which in some way seemed to be different from the blanket-covered squaws who stalked here and there about the post grounds.

At first I thought she might be the squaw of one of the employees of the company, who lived scattered about, some of them now, by the advice of Doctor McLaughlin, beginning to till little fields; but, as I have said, there was something in the stature or carriage or garb of this woman which caused me idly to follow her, at first with my eyes and then with my footsteps.
She passed steadily on toward a long and low log cabin, located a short distance beyond the quarters which had been assigned to me.

I saw her step up to the door and heard her knock; then there came a flood of light--more light than was usual in the opening of the door of a frontier cabin.

This displayed the figure of the night walker, showing her tall and gaunt and a little stooped; so that, after all, I took her to be only one of our American frontier women, being quite sure that she was not Indian or half-breed.
This emboldened me, on a mere chance--an act whose mental origin I could not have traced--to step up to the door after it had been closed, and myself to knock thereat.