THE TRAIL TO OTTAWA When my eyes again opened it was to darkness and silence as profound as that of my former unconsciousness.

My mind was a blank, and seemingly I retained no sense of what had occurred, or of my present surroundings.

For the moment I felt no certainty even that I was actually alive, yet slowly, little by little, reality conquered, and I became keenly conscious of physical pain, while memory also began to blindly reassert itself.

It was a series of dim pictures projecting themselves on the awakening brain--the Indian attack on the cabin, the horrors of that last struggle, the gleaming tomahawk descending on my head to deal the death blow, the savage eyes of my assailant glaring into mine, and that awful flash of red and yellow flame, swept across my mind one by one with such intense vividness as to cause me to give vent to a moan of agony.
I could see nothing, hear nothing.

All about was impenetrable blackness and the silence of the grave.