As they closed in more closely around us, taunting the Miamis unmercifully, even shaking tomahawks in their faces, with fierce eyes full of hatred and murder, I drew back my horse until I ranged up beside Mademoiselle Antoinette, and thus we rode steadily onward through that frenzied, howling mass, the girl between De Croix and me, who thus protected her on either side.
It was truly a weary ride, full of insult, and perchance of grave peril had we faced that naked mob less resolutely.

Doubtless the chiefs restrained their young men somewhat, but more than once we came within a hair's-breadth of serious conflict.

They hemmed us in so tightly that we could only walk our horses; and twice they pressed upon Jordan so hard as to halt him altogether, bunching his cowardly Miamis, and even striking them contemptuously with their blackened sticks.

The second time this occurred, Captain Wells rode forward to force a path, driving the spurs into his horse so quickly that the startled animal fairly cut a lane through the crowded savages before they could draw back.

Naught restrained them from open violence but their knowledge of that stern-faced swarthy soldier who fronted them with such dauntless courage.