A cloud had come over his cheerful soul.

"If only I knowed about Jim," he muttered "I wonder if I'll ever clap eyes or his old face again." Never before had he known such acute anxiety.

Pioneers are wont to trust each other and in their wild risks assume that the odd chance is on their side.
But now black forebodings possessed him, born not of reasoning but of instinct.

His comrade somewhere just ahead of him was in deadly peril.
And then came the drums.
The sound broke into the still dawn with a harsh challenge.

They were war drums, beaten as he remembered them in Montgomery's campaign.