Dangerous Ground

It is a night of storm and darkness. Huge trees are bending their might, and branches, strong or slender, are swaying and snapping under a fierce blast from the northward. Night has closed in, but the ghostly light of a reluctant camp fire reveals a small group of men gathered about its blaze; and back of them, more in the shelter of the timber, a few wagons, —prairie schooners of the staunchest type—from which, now and then, the anxious countenance of a woman, or the eager, curious face of a child, peers out.