It will be recalled that a short while before the incident related, Shagbark had started off on a reconnaissance of his own. Assured as he was that the Indians of whom he had caught glimpses during the afternoon, and the reports of whose guns he had heard not far away, were drawing near the camp with the most sinister designs, he set out to checkmate them so far as it was possible. He could not trust all his sentinels as he would have liked to trust them, and he hoped to anticipate the attack of their foes.