Instead of hurrying away, as his impatience prompted him to do, the youth stood several minutes surveying the scene around him. The Sauk village was asleep, and the scrutiny which he made of the collection of wigwams failed to show a single star-like twinkle of light. The night was clear, and a gibbous moon was high in the sky. Patches of clouds drifted in front of the orb, and fantastic shadows whisked across the clearing and over the wigwams and trees. The dwellings of the Indians looked unsightly and misshapen in the shifting light, and Jack felt as though he were gazing upon a village of the dead.