[When Wilderness Was King by Randall Parrish]@TWC D-Link book
When Wilderness Was King

CHAPTER IX
7/9

To our left, there extended, parallel to our course of march, a narrow ridge of white and firmly beaten sand, as regular in appearance as the ramparts of a fort.

Here and there a break occurred where in some spring flood a sudden, rush of water had burst through.
Glancing curiously down these narrow aisles, as we rode steadily onward, I caught fleeting glimpses of level prairie land, green with waving grasses, apparently stretching to the western horizon bare of tree or shrub.

At first, I took this to be water also; until I realized that I looked out upon the great plains of the Illinois.
The Captain was always chary of speech; now he rode onward with so stern a face, that presently I spoke in inquiry.
"You are silent, Captain Wells," I said.

"One would expect some rejoicing, as we draw so close to the end of our long journey." He glanced aside at me.
"Wayland," he said slowly, "I have been upon the frontier all my life, and have, as you know, lived in Indian camps and shared in many a savage campaign.

I am too old a man, too tried a soldier, ever to hesitate to acknowledge fear; but I tell you now, I believe we are riding northward to our deaths." I had known, since first leaving the Maumee, that danger haunted the expedition; yet these solemn words came as a surprise.
"Why think you thus ?" I asked, with newly aroused anxiety, my thoughts more with the girl behind than with myself.


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