Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/271

mur and gurgle. Weariness was claiming him now as, ahead of him, the night sky began to light above the mysterious hills. Slumber called him and it needed all his courage and determination to resist its alluring voice. Perhaps it was only the knowledge of what his mission meant to the beleaguered inhabitants of the garrison back there at Brookfield that kept him somehow on his aching feet to the end. The last three hours of that journey became a waking nightmare of which, afterwards, he could recall little beyond the sheer suffering that he underwent. Dawn came up slowly out of the east and found him skirting a great forest of pines and hemlocks. The gray lightness showed his uncertain sight a cluster of cabins that dotted the plain ahead. A rude stockade fort caught the first yellow glint of the sun on its newly peeled logs. The river turned and left him to struggle on by a side path through coarse grass and trailing briers that caught at his faltering feet and thrice sent him sprawling to the dewy earth. Each time it took great toll of his strength to lift himself again and stagger on. And then the log wall of a little house suddenly barred his way and in the midst of a great feeling of thankfulness