The next day was an exceedingly hot one in and around Fort Oswego, and Dave was content to remain in the shade of some trees and take it easy.

Early in the morning a detachment of soldiers from Fort Niagara arrived, having been sent down by General Gage, who had now superseded Sir William Johnson in command.

These soldiers were followed by others, who had scouted through the woods lining the lake shore and who declared that all the French and unfriendly Indians had left the locality.

The soldiers brought with them two barge loads of powder which the commandant at Oswego desired. The powder did not come in until almost dark, but it was decided to place it in the powder house that night, rather than leave it on the lake until morning.

For the want of something better to do, Dave walked down to the powder house and watched the soldiers bring in the kegs of powder, and also several boxes of flints. It was rather hard work, in such warm weather, and it caused more than one soldier to grumble.

“I didn’t enlist for this,” grumbled one pioneer. “Between such work and working on the fort at Niagara, I’ve toiled harder than when I built my cabin on the Mohawk.”

“Never mind,” said another, who was more cheerful. “Remember, it’s all for the good of the cause.”

“Yes, the good of England,” growled the first speaker. “After this war between England and France is over, the Canadians will still be our neighbors, and do you think they’ll like it because we walloped them? Not to my style of thinking.”

One of the kegs of powder had burst open, and this left a train of grains running from the lake front almost to the powder-house door. Some of the powder was spilt on a rough rock, but nobody noticed this, until a soldier in passing scraped his foot on the rock, when there was a flash which made him jump high in the air and drop the keg he was carrying.

“It’s powder!” he roared, and ran for his life.

A dozen others saw the flash, including Dave, and many leaped back, while half a dozen other spurts of flame went up from the long grass, which was now on fire. The keg the soldier had dropped rolled into this long grass, and might have exploded had not Dave rushed forward.

“Hi! what are you up to?” roared one soldier. “Look out, or you will be killed!”

“I’ll risk it,” muttered the young soldier, and sprang beside the keg. He gave it a vigorous kick, which sent it spinning away from the dangerous spot.

The train of fire had burnt backward as well as forward, and it reached another patch of grass close to where two half-kegs of powder rested, the last taken from one of the barges. Nobody cared to go near these, and a minute later one exploded with a loud report, hurling stones, dirt, and the other half-keg into the lake.

The sound of the exploding powder caused an alarm in and around the fort, and soldiers came hurrying from all directions.

“The grass is on fire in a dozen places!”

“It is creeping up to the powder house!”

“If the house goes up we had best all take to the woods!”

These and other cries rang out, and for the moment nobody knew what to do. A few began to stamp on the grass and thereby burnt their shoes, but the majority felt like retreating in short order.

“Form a bucket brigade!” at last shouted an officer, and a rush was made for the leathern buckets, while other, coming suddenly to their senses, ran for picks and shovels, with which to dig away the burning grass.

It was perilous work, for there was no telling how soon the flames might leap to the powder house and blow everything for rods around sky-high.

In the excitement Dave forgot all about his sore knee, and catching up a bucket, he worked as manfully as anybody to bring water. Two lines were formed, one passing up the water and the other returning the empty buckets, and soon the work began to tell in spite of the dryness of the grass, which seemed to burn like so much tinder.

It was a good hour before the excitement came to an end, and to make sure that there should be no more danger of fire, the grass all around the powder house was dug up and cast to one side, and the ditch thus formed was filled with water. Then the remaining grass was thoroughly saturated; and the danger was over.

“Rather a close call, Dave,” remarked Raymond, when the two were washing up, later on. “I thought sure we’d all be blown to kingdom come.”

“I thought that, too,” put in Shamer. “I felt more like running than like trying to put out the fire.”

“It was certainly exciting enough,” answered Dave. “I forgot all about my knee,” and he rubbed that member tenderly, for it had now begun to assert itself once more.

“They tell me that two of the sick prisoners in the hospital are missing,” came from a soldier standing near. “They took French leave during the confusion.”

“Two prisoners missing?” queried Dave with interest. “Do you know who they were?”

“I do not.”

“I’m going to find out.”

“Do you think one was that rascal of a Bevoir?” asked Raymond.

“It would be just my luck if it was,” answered Dave, as he hurried away.

At the hospital the guards could give no information, for they had been ordered to keep silent. But a little later Dave found the surgeon who had caught him talking to the French trader.

“Yes, one of the missing ones is Jean Bevoir,” said the surgeon. “The explosion of the powder, and the fire, upset both the nurses and the guards, and in the excitement Bevoir got away, with another Frenchman named Chalette.”

“It’s too bad.”

The surgeon gazed at Dave sharply.

“You are quite sure you didn’t change your mind about helping that man?” he demanded.

“Me? Not much, sir. Why, I’ve been out fighting the fire.”

“He kicked away one of the kegs of powder,” said a nurse, who had chanced to see the brave act. “He couldn’t have been around here when the men got away.”

A detachment of soldiers was sent out to roam the woods and watch the lake front, in an effort to locate Bevoir and his companion. But though the search was kept up for four days, nothing was seen or heard of the escaped prisoners.

“This is certainly too bad,” said Raymond to Dave, when the search was practically given up. “I suppose you reckoned on sending him to prison.”

“Yes, and he deserved it.”

“You want to be on your guard against such a man, Dave. He will not forget you, remember that.”

“I only wish I could meet him!” burst out Dave.

“He will probably get over to Canada just as fast as he can. He knows he won’t dare to show himself around any English camp, or at that trading-post again.”

Dave was still on the sick list, and to spend the time went fishing the next day. He had just pulled in a fine perch when a well-known voice reached his ears, causing him to leap up from the rock on which he was fishing and drop his pole.

“So here ye air, eh?” came to his ears. “Jest as nateral as ever, bless my eyes if ye aint!”

“Sam Barringford!” exclaimed Dave, and caught the old frontiersman by both hands. “Oh, how glad I am to see you again! I’ve been looking for you for several days.”

“Have ye now? Waal, it’s good to be looked fer—better’n when folks hopes ye will stay away.” Barringford winked one eye. “I had to stop at Albany on business. How air ye, an’ where is Henry?”

“Henry—oh, Sam, how can I tell you. He——”

“Don’t say Henry is dead, lad—no, no, not that!” And all the color in the honest hunter’s face seemed to die away. “He’s alive, o’ course he is.”

“I—I hope so. But I don’t know. We had a fearful fight with the Indians, and Henry was captured by them, and by some Frenchmen, and taken away in a boat.” And Dave told the whole story, just as it has been written in these pages.

Sam Barringford listened in utter silence, shaking his head from time to time, to show that he understood. Henry was very dear to him, as old readers of this series know, and the pair had been on many a hunting expedition together.

“I don’t think the Frenchmen would kill him,—not in cold blood and they wearing the army uniform,” he said slowly. “But the redskins are the Old Nick’s own, and if they got Henry to themselves——”

“That is what I am thinking, Sam. Oh, it is awful.”

“Ye got no news at all?”

“Not a word.”

“Have ye been back to the spot?”

“I couldn’t go. My knee——”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. How is the knee now?”

“A good deal better.”

“I’ll go up to thet spot to-morrow,” said Barringford with sudden determination.

“But they went off in a boat.”

“Perhaps thet was a blind, lad.”

Barringford had but little to tell outside of what Dave had already learned through the medium of Mr. Morris’s letter. The journey to Wills’ Creek with little Nell and the Rose twins had proved uneventful, but the neighbors had flocked from far and near to see the restored children.

“It would have done your heart good to have seen your aunt,” said the old hunter. “She nearly went crazy, laughin’ one minit an’ cryin’ the next, and little Nell and Rodney laughed and cried too. Your father and Uncle Joe and me couldn’t stand it nohow, and we went down to the barn and blubbered too. Never felt so queer in my hull life afore.” And Barringford rubbed his coat sleeve over his eyes. The tears were in Dave’s eyes too, and he was not ashamed of them either.

“I know I ought to write home about Henry,” said the young soldier, when he could trust himself to speak. “But, somehow, I can’t bring myself to do it, although I’ve tried a dozen times. Every day I live in the hope that the next day will bring good news.”

“Wait until I’ve made thet trip I spoke about, Dave.”

“Shall I go along?”

“Best not, with that hurt knee. A hurt knee aint to be fooled with. Jack Pepper twisted his knee onct, and walked lame the rest o’ his nateral life.”

“Oh, I hope I won’t have to do that!” cried Dave. “I’ll take the best care I can of it.” And he did.