With bowed head he slowly walked away toward the fort,
totally oblivious of the fact that a young girl, with hands
pressed tightly over her breast to try to still a madly beating
heart, watched him from her window until he disappeared into
the shadow of the block-house.

Alfred paced up and down his room the four remaining
hours of that eventful day. When the light was breaking
in at the east and dawn' near at hand he heard the rough
voices of men and the tramping of iron-shod hoofs. The hour
of his departure was at hand.

He sat down at his table and by the aid of the dim light
from a pine knot he wrote a hurried letter to Betty. A little
hope revived in his heart as he thought that perhaps all might
yet be well. Surely some one would be up to whom he could
intrust the letter, and if no one he would run over and slip it
under the door of Colonel Zane's house.

In the gray of the early morning Alfred rode out with the
daring band of heavily armed men, all grim and stern, each
silent with the thought of the man who knows he may never
return. Soon the settlement was left far behind.

-100-