He looked from one to the other back and forth with a wondering smile breaking over his bronzed and determined face.

"We've been hot on yer trail for thirty hours," said Kenton.

"Roussillon put us on it back yonder. But what are ye up to? Where are ye goin'?"

"I'm going to Clark at Kaskaskia to bring him yonder." He waved his hand eastward. "I am going to take Vincennes and kill Hamilton."

"Well, ye're taking a mighty queer course, my boy, if ye ever expect to find Kaskaskia. Ye're already twenty miles too far south."

"Carryin' his gun on the same shoulder all the time," said Oncle Jazon, "has made 'im kind o' swing in a curve like. 'Tain't good luck no how to carry yer gun on yer lef' shoulder. When you do it meks yer take a longer step with yer right foot than ye do with yer lef' an' ye can't walk a straight line to save yer liver. Ventreblue! La venaison brule encore! Look at that dasted meat burnin' agin!"

He jumped back to the fire to turn the scorching cuts.

Beverley wrung Kenton's hand and looked into his eyes, as a man does when an old friend comes suddenly out of the past, so to say, and brings the freshness and comfort of a strong, true soul to brace him in his hour of greatest need.

"Of all men in the world, Simon Kenton, you were the least expected; but how glad I am! How thankful! Now I know I shall succeed. We are going to capture Vincennes, Kenton, are we not? We shall, sha'n't we, Jazon? Nothing, nothing can prevent us, can it?"

Kenton heartily returned the pressure of the young man's hand, while Oncle Jazon looked up quizzically and said:

"We're a tol'ble 'spectable lot to prevent; but then we might git pervented. I've seed better men an' us purty consid'ble pervented lots o' times in my life."

In speaking the colloquial dialect of the American backwoodsmen, Oncle Jazon, despite years of practice among them, gave to it a creole lisp and some turns of p.r.o.nunciation not to be indicated by any form of spelling. It added to his talk a peculiar soft drollery. When he spoke French it was mostly that of the COUREURS DE BOIS, a PATOIS which still lingers in out-of-the-way nooks of Louisiana.

"For my part," said Kenton, "I am with ye, old boy, in anything ye want to do. But now ye've got to tell me everything. I see that ye're keeping something back. What is it?" He glanced sidewise slyly at Oncle Jazon.

Beverley was frank to a fault; but somehow his heart tried to keep Alice all to itself. He hesitated; then--

"I broke my parole with Governor Hamilton," he said. "He forced me to do it. I feel altogether justified. I told him beforehand that I should certainly leave Vincennes and go get a force to capture and kill him; and I'll do it, Simon Kenton, I'll do it!"

"I see, I see," Kenton a.s.sented, "but what was the row about? What did he do to excite ye--to make ye feel justified in breakin' over yer parole in that high-handed way? Fitz, I know ye too well to be fooled by ye--you've got somethin' in mind that ye don't want to tell. Well, then don't tell it. Oncle Jazon and I will go it blind, won't we, Jazon?"

"Blind as two moles," said the old man; "but as for thet secret," he added, winking both eyes at once, "I don't know as it's so mighty hard to guess. It's always safe to 'magine a woman in the case. It's mostly women 'at sends men a trottin' off 'bout nothin', sort o' crazy like."

Beverley looked guilty and Oncle Jazon continued: "They's a poo'ty gal at Vincennes, an' I see the young man a steppin' into her house about fifteen times a day 'fore I lef' the place. Mebbe she's tuck up wi' one o' them English officers. Gals is slippery an' onsartin'."

"Jazon!" cried Beverley, "stop that instantly, or I'll wring your old neck." His anger was real and he meant what he said. He clenched his hands and glowered.

Oncle Jazon, who was still squatting by the little fire, tumbled over backwards, as if Beverley had kicked him; and there he lay on the ground with his slender legs quivering akimbo in the air, while he laughed in a strained treble that sounded like the whining of a screech-owl.

The old scamp did not know all the facts in Beverley's case, nor did he even suspect what had happened; but he was aware of the young man's tender feeling for Alice, and he did shrewdly conjecture that she was a factor in the problem.

The rude jest at her expense did not seem to his withered and toughened taste in the least out of the way. Indeed it was a delectable bit of humor from Oncle Jazon's point of view.

"Don't get mad at the old man," said Kenton, plucking Beverley aside.

"He's yer friend from his heels to his old scalped crown. Let him have his fun." Then lowering his voice almost to a whisper he continued:

"I was in Vincennes for two days and nights spyin' around. Madame G.o.dere hid me in her house when there was need of it. I know how it is with ye; I got all the gossip about ye and the young lady, as well as all the information about Hamilton and his forces that Colonel Clark wants. I'm goin' to Kaskaskia; but I think it quite possible that Clark will be on his march to Vincennes before we get there; for Vigo has taken him full particulars as to the fort and its garrison, and I know that he's determined to capture the whole thing or die tryin'."

Beverley felt his heart swell and his blood leap strong in his veins at these words.

"I saw ye while I was in Vincennes," Kenton added, "but I never let ye see me. Ye were a prisoner, and I had no business with ye while your parole held. I felt that it was best not to tempt ye to give me aid, or to let ye have knowledge of me while I was a spy. I left two days before ye did, and should have been at Kaskaskia by this time if I hadn't run across Jazon, who detained me. He wanted to go with me, and I waited for him to repair the stock of his old gun. He tinkered at it 'tween meals and showers for half a week at the Indian village back yonder before he got it just to suit him. But I tell ye he's wo'th waiting for any length of time, and I was glad to let him have his way."

Kenton, who was still a young man in his early thirties, respected Beverley's reticence on the subject uppermost in his mind. Madame G.o.dere had told the whole story with flamboyant embellishments; Kenton tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surrept.i.tious glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's condition. He was himself a victim of the tender pa.s.sion to the extent of being an exile from his Virginia home, which he had left on account of dangerously wounding a rival. But he was well touched with the backwoodsman's taste for joke and banter. He and Oncle Jazon, therefore, knowing the main feature of Beverley's predicament, enjoyed making the most of their opportunity in their rude but perfectly generous and kindly way.

By indirection and impersonal details, as regarded his feelings toward Alice, Beverley in due time made his friends understand that his whole ambition was centered in rescuing her. Nor did the motive fail to enlist their sympathy to the utmost. If all the world loves a lover, all men having the best virile instinct will fight for a lover's cause.

Both Kenton and Oncle Jazon were enthusiastic; they wanted nothing better than an opportunity to aid in rescuing any girl who had shown so much patriotism and pluck. But Oncle Jazon was fond of Alice, and Beverley's story affected him peculiarly on her account.

"They's one question I'm a goin' to put to ye, young man," he said, after he had heard everything and they had talked it all over, "an' I want ye to answer it straight as a bullet f'om yer gun."

"Of course, Jazon, go ahead," said Beverley. "I shall be glad to answer." But his mind was far away with the gold-haired maiden in Hamilton's prison. He scarcely knew what he was saying.

"Air ye expectin' to marry Alice Roussillon?"

The three men were at the moment eating the well broiled venison. Oncle Jazon's puckered lips and chin were dripping with the fragrant grease and juice, which also flowed down his sinewy, claw-like fingers.

Overhead in the bare tops of the scrub oaks that covered the prairie oasis, the February wind sang a shrill and doleful song.

Beverley started as if a blow had been aimed at him. Oncle Jazon's question, indeed, was a blow as unexpected as it was direct and powerful.

"I know it's poo'ty p'inted," the old man added after a short pause, "an' ye may think 'at I ain't got no business askin' it; but I have.

That leetle gal's a pet o' mine, an' I'm a lookin' after her, an'

expectin' to see 'at she's not bothered by n.o.body who's not goin' to do right by her. Marryin' is a mighty good thing, but--"

"What do ye know about matrimony, ye old raw-headed bachelor?" demanded Kenton, who felt impelled to relieve Beverley of the embarra.s.sment of an answer. "Ye wouldn't know a wife from a sack o' meal!"

"Now don't git too peart an' fast, Si Kenton," cried Oncle Jazon, glaring truculently at his friend, but at the same time showing a dry smile that seemed to be hopelessly entangled in criss-cross wrinkles.

"Who told ye I was a bach'lor? Not by a big jump. I've been married mighty nigh on to twenty times in my day. Mos'ly Injuns, o' course; but a squaw's a wife w'en ye marries her, an' I know how it hurts a gal to be dis'p'inted in sich a matter. That's w'y I put the question I did.

I'm not goin' to let no man give sorry to that little Roussillon gal; an' so ye've got my say. Ye seed her raise thet flag on the fort, Lieutenant Beverley, an' ye seed her take it down an' git away wi' it.

You know 'at she deserves nothin' but the best; an' by the Holy Virgin, she's got to have it, or I'm a goin' to know several reasons why.

Thet's what made me put the question straight to ye, young man, an' I expects a straight answer."

Beverley's face paled; but not with anger. He grasped one of Oncle Jazon's greasy hands and gave it such a squeeze that the old fellow grimaced painfully.

"Thank you, Oncle Jazon, thank you!" he said, with a peculiar husky burr in his voice. "Alice will never suffer if I can help it. Let the subject drop now, my friend, until we have saved her from the hands of Hamilton." In the power of his emotion he continued to grip the old man's hand with increasing severity of pressure.

"Ventrebleu! let go! Needn't smash a feller's fingers 'bout it!"

screeched Oncle Jazon. "I can't shoot wo'th a cent, nohow, an' ef ye cripple up my trigger-finger--"

Kenton had been peeping under the low-hanging scrub-oak boughs while Oncle Jazon was speaking these last words; and now he suddenly interrupted:

"The devil! look yonder!" he growled out in startling tone. "Injuns!"

It was a sharp snap of the conversation's thread, and at the same time our three friends realized that they had been careless in not keeping a better look-out. They let fall the meat they had not yet finished eating and seized their guns.

Five or six dark forms were moving toward them across a little point of the prairie that cut into the wood a quarter of a mile distant.

"Yander's more of 'em," said Oncle Jazon, as if not in the least concerned, wagging his head in an opposite direction, from which another squad was approaching.

That he duly appreciated the situation appeared only in the celerity with which he acted.

Kenton at once a.s.sumed command, and his companions felt his perfect fitness. There was no doubt from the first as to what the Indians meant; but even if there had been it would have soon vanished; for in less than three minutes twenty-one savages were swiftly and silently forming a circle inclosing the spot where the three white men, who had covered themselves as best they could with trees, waited in grim steadiness for the worst.