The Amulet by Mary Noailles Murfree — Read

In the meantime the days dragged slowly by at Fort Prince George. The snow lay on the ground with that persistence which the weather-wise interpret as a waiting for another fall. All out-of-door diversions were interdicted. Sleighing was not to be essayed, for it was considered unsafe to venture beyond the range of the guns. There was no ice for curling. Save for the boisterous sport of the rank and file hurling snow-balls at each other about the parade, when the fall was fresh and the novelty an appeal to idleness, the storm had brought none of its characteristic pastimes.

There was a rumor heard in Keowee Town of a blockade higher up in the mountains, where the fall had been of unprecedented depth. It became bruited abroad somehow, -- not that aught had been disclosed of the fact, -- perhaps by subtle intuition, perhaps only because the circumstances warranted the surmise, that Captain Howard was extremely uneasy as to the progress and fate of Ensign Raymond and his soldiers. Now and again an Indian straggling from some party out on "the winter hunt" came in at Fort Prince George with a story of having met the detachment in the wilderness. He would be eagerly welcomed by Captain Howard, regaled with French brandy and roast beef to loosen his tongue, the fraud discovered only when too late, the man's description of the personnel of the force, elicited under keen inquisition, failing to tally with the facts in a single particular. It was impossible for Captain Howard to set his mind at ease in the assurance that all were well and progressing finely, when the commander was described as a beautiful old man in buck-skin with a long white beard, or a squat fat man with a big stomach, and a red face, and a splendid bag-wig. The fumes of the brandy and the beef penetrated far beyond the gates of Fort Prince George, for rumor diffused and extended the aroma, and Indian idlers made their racial craft and tact serve the simple purpose of refreshing their inner man at the government's expense by the simple expedient of professing to have seen Ensign Raymond in the mountains commanding Captain Howard's soldiers. So anxious for news did he become that he seemed to have lost his normal suspicion, and on each occasion he returned to his hope of trustworthy information with an eager precipitancy that made him an easy prey.