not tear himself away from it. The conflict within himself recommenced. His anger at his want of success choked him. He was going to struggle on to the end.
Meanwhile the passengers and some of the wounded—among others Colonel Proctor, whose condition was very serious—had taken seats in the cars. The buzzing of the overheated boiler was heard; the steam escaped through the valves; the engine whistled, the train started, and soon disappeared, mingling its white smoke with the whirling of the snow.
The detective Fix had remained.
Some hours passed. The weather was very bad, the cold very keen. Fix, seated on a bench in the station, was motionless. It might have been supposed that he was sleeping. Notwithstanding the storm, Aouda left every moment the room which had been placed at her disposal. She went to the end of the platform, trying to look through the tempest of snow, wishing to pierce the mist which narrowed the horizon around her, listening if she could hear any sound. But there was nothing. She went in then, chilled through, to return a few moments later, and always in vain.
Evening came. The little detachment had not returned. Where was it at this moment? Had it been able to overtake the Indians? Had there been a fight, or were these soldiers, lost in the mist, wandering at a venture? The captain of Fort Kearney was very uneasy, although he did not wish to let his uneasiness appear.
Night came; the snow fell less heavily, but the intensity of the cold increased. The most intrepid glance would not have looked at this vast, obscure space without terror. An absolute silence prevailed over the plain. Neither the flight of a bird nor the passage of a wild beast disturbed the unbroken quiet.
During the whole night Aouda, her mind full of dark presentiments, her heart filled with anguish, wandered on the border of the prairie. Her imagination carried her afar off and showed her a thousand dangers. What she suffered during those long hours could not be expressed. Fix, still immovable in the same spot, did not sleep. Once a man approached and spoke to him, but the detective sent him away, after replying to him by a negative sign.
