A SEARCH, AND ITS REWARD I slept at last, soundly, for several hours, lying well hidden behind the skins at the back of the lodge.

There seemed nothing else to do; for poor De Croix had no thought other than that of the woman who had just left us, and I was exhausted by hours of excitement and toil.

He was asleep when I awoke, lying just as I had left him, his face still buried in the short trodden grass that carpeted the floor.
It was so quiet without that I listened in vain for a sound to indicate the presence of Indians.

Silence so profound was in strange contrast with the hideous uproar of the preceding night, and curiosity led me finally to project my head from beneath the lodge covering and gain a cautious glimpse of the camp without.

The yellow sunshine of the calm summer afternoon rested hot and glaring on the draped skins of the tepees, and on the brown prairie-grass, trampled by hundreds of passing feet.