F OR the moment, every muscle of my body seemed paralyzed. I distinctly heard the creature moving in my direction, and I backed away violently, actuated only by the thought of instant escape into the open air. But Burns blocked the solitary passage.  
"Back out of here, for God's sake!" I managed to exclaim through parched lips. "That devil-thing is coming this way!"
 
He struggled desperately in the darkness, tugging madly at some obstacle, an oath smothered on his lips. I waited and listened, every nerve on edge.
 
"Dern it all, but I can't!" he groaned at last. "My blame ol' gun hes got wedged, and won't give an inch."
 
Then a half-smothered laugh rippled out of the gloom just in front of me.
 
? 162 ?
 
"Heaven protect me, but it's Wayland!" came a voice, and the laughter broke into a roar of merriment.
 
"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! This will be the death of me!"
 
The voice, choked and muffled as it was, sounded strangely hollow in that dark cave; yet it had a familiar tone. So surprising was the situation, that I could only stare into the black void, speechless. It was Burns who realized the need of action.
 
"Whoever the dern fool is," he growled, his voice hoarse with anger, "choke the wind out of him, or his blame howling will bring every Injun on the river yere!"
 
"De Croix!" I exclaimed quickly, aroused to recollection by the seriousness of the situation, "stop that infernal racket, or the two of us will throttle you!"
 
He puffed and gurgled, striving his best to smother the sense of ludicrousness that mastered him. To me there was small cause for merriment; the supreme terror of those moments merged into hot anger at the deception, and I crept forward eager to plant my hand upon the rascal's throat.
 
"What French mockery is this?" I exclaimed, my hand hard upon his arm. "Think you, Captain de Croix, that you can play such tricks in this wilderness, and not be made to pay for them?"
 
I felt him tremble under my fierce grasp; yet ? 163 ? it was not from fear, for my words only served to loosen his laughter once more. Burns now broke in, shoving the barrel of his long rifle forward over my shoulder till he struck the Frenchman a blow that effectually silenced him.
 
"You chattering ape!" he said, growling like an angry bear, "another yawp like that, and I'll blow a hole clean through you! Now, you French ninny, tell us what this means, an' be quick about it if ye want ter save yer hide!"
 
De Croix did not answer, but he ceased to laugh, and panted as if the breath had been knocked out of him. Another impatient movement by Burns led me to speak up hastily in his defence.
 
"Wait," I said, laying my grasp upon his gun, "he has no breath left with which to make reply. 'Tis the French gallant who raced with me, the same whom you met at Hawkins's Ford; and no doubt he felt good reason to play the ghost here in this dark pit."
 
"Ay," panted De Croix painfully, "I truly thought the savages were upon me, and sought to frighten them by the only means I could devise. Sacre! but you hit me a sore blow in the ribs! If I have frightened you, 'twas no worse than the terror that took me at your entrance here."
 
For a time none spoke, and no sound, save De Croix's labored breathing, broke the silence. Burns had turned slightly, and I knew was listening intently ? 164 ? for any sound without. Apparently satisfied that the noise made by us had not been overheard, he asked in his old deliberate drawl:
 
"How in thunder, Mister Parly-voo, did ye git up thet thar combination, anyhow?"
 
I heard the Frenchman chuckle, and pinched him as a warning to be careful. He answered, in his reckless, easy way:
 
"'Twas all simple enough behind the scenes, Messieurs. I but took some old sacking discovered here, and used it as a robe, standing my hair well on end; and a flash of powder made the scene most realistic. The thing indeed worked well. I would I had a picture of Master Wayland's face to show Toinette!"
 
This chance mention of her name recalled me to myself. The undecided wager was yet to be won, and the night was now nearly spent. There came to me a sudden determination to risk a rush through the darkness to the Fort gates, rather than chance any further defeat at the hands of this rash gallant. Yet prudence bade me question somewhat further before I ventured upon so mad a deed.
 
"No doubt 'twas most happy from your point of view, Monsieur. From ours, it was less so; and instead of laughing, you might better be thanking your lucky stars that you did not pay more dearly for such folly. But what brought you here? Why have you failed to reach the stockade?"
 
? 165 ?
 
"Sacre!" he muttered carelessly, "but I had a fierce enough run for it as it was. Why did I not reach the stockade? Because, my friend, I am no real ghost to be invisible in the night, nor am I a bird to fly. 'Twas in the shadow of that big building yonder that I ran into a nest of those copper-colored fiends, and 'twas nip and tuck which of us won, had I not, by pure good luck, chanced to stumble into this hole, and so escape them. Perchance they also thought me a ghost, who knows? But, be that as it may, they were beating the river bank for me in the flesh, when you came creeping here."
 
We lay flat on the floor, the three of us, our eyes fastened upon the faint light that began to stream in through the entrance. I could hear Burns muttering to himself, as is often the way with men who lead lives of solitude; and every now and then De Croix would shake silently at the recollection of what had just occurred. I minded neither of them, but chiefly planned how best I might outwit De Croix and win the prize offered by Mademoiselle. The promise of dawning day was in the outer air, too dim as yet to render our faces visible. Suddenly the slight draft of air veered, and swept a tiny breath of smoke into my nostrils. It came so quickly that I scarcely realized its significance until Burns scrambled to his knees with a growl.
 
"God! the devils have run us to cover!" he cried, ? 166 ? sullenly. "They have started a fire to smoke us out!"
 
It hardly needed a moment to prove this true; the thin smoke grew more and more dense, filling the narrow entrance until we lay gasping for breath. De Croix, ever the most impulsive, was............