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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alice of Old Vincennes, by Maurice Thompson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Alice of Old Vincennes
+
+Author: Maurice Thompson
+
+Posting Date: July 4, 2009 [EBook #4097]
+Release Date: May, 2003
+First Posted: November 27, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALICE OF OLD VINCENNES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Alice of Old Vincennes
+
+
+by
+
+Maurice Thompson
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+To M. PLACIDE VALCOUR
+  M. D., Ph D., LL. D.
+
+MY DEAR DR. VALCOUR: You gave me the Inspiration which made this story
+haunt me until I wrote it. Gaspard Roussillon's letter, a mildewed
+relic of the year 1788, which you so kindly permitted me to copy, as
+far as it remained legible, was the point from which my imagination,
+accompanied by my curiosity, set out upon a long and delightful quest.
+You laughed at me when I became enthusiastic regarding the possible
+historical importance at that ancient find, alas! fragmentary epistle;
+but the old saying about the beatitude of him whose cachinations are
+latest comes handy to me just now, and I must remind you that "I told
+you so." True enough, it was history pure and simple that I had in mind
+while enjoying the large hospitality of your gulf-side home. Gaspard
+Roussillon's letter then appealed to my greed for materials which would
+help along the making of my little book "The Story of Louisiana."
+Later, however, as my frequent calls upon you for both documents and
+suggestions have informed you, I fell to strumming a different guitar.
+And now to you I dedicate this historical romance of old Vincennes, as
+a very appropriate, however slight, recognition of your scholarly
+attainments, your distinguished career in a noble profession, and your
+descent from one of the earliest French families (if not the very
+earliest) long resident at that strange little post on the Wabash, now
+one of the most beautiful cities between the greet river and the ocean.
+
+Following, with ever tantalized expectancy, the broken and breezy hints
+in the Roussillon letter, I pursued a will-o'-the-wisp, here, there,
+yonder, until by slowly arriving increments I gathered up a large
+amount of valuable facts, which when I came to compare them with the
+history of Clark's conquest of the Wabash Valley, fitted amazingly well
+into certain spaces heretofore left open in that important yet sadly
+imperfect record.
+
+You will find that I was not so wrong in suspecting that Emile Jazon,
+mentioned in the Roussillon letter, was a brother of Jean Jazon and a
+famous scout in the time of Boone and Clark. He was, therefore, a
+kinsman of yours on the maternal side, and I congratulate you. Another
+thing may please you, the success which attended my long and patient
+research with a view to clearing up the connection between Alice
+Roussillon's romantic life, as brokenly sketched in M. Roussillon's
+letter, and the capture of Vincennes by Colonel George Rogers Clark.
+
+Accept, then, this book, which to those who care only for history will
+seem but an idle romance, while to the lovers of romance it may look
+strangely like the mustiest history. In my mind, and in yours I hope,
+it will always be connected with a breezy summer-house on a headland of
+the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling of palmetto leaves, the fine
+flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird voices, the soft lilt of
+Creole patois, and the endless dash and roar of a fragrant sea over
+which the gulls and pelicans never ceased their flight, and beside
+which you smoked while I dreamed.
+
+MAURICE THOMPSON.
+  JULY, 1900.
+
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+     I. Under the Cherry Tree
+    II. A Letter from Afar
+   III. The Rape of the Demijohn
+    IV. The First Mayor of Vincennes
+     V. Father Gibault
+    VI. A Fencing Bout
+   VII. The Mayor's Party
+  VIII. The Dilemma of Captain Helm
+    IX. The Honors of War
+     X. M. Roussillon Entertains Colonel Hamilton
+    XI. A Sword and a Horse Pistol
+   XII. Manon Lescaut, and a Rapier-Thrust
+  XIII. A Meeting in the Wilderness
+   XIV. A Prisoner of Love
+    XV. Virtue in a Locket
+   XVI. Father Beret's Old Battle
+  XVII. A March through Cold Water
+ XVIII. A Duel by Moonlight
+   XIX. The Attack
+    XX. Alice's Flag
+   XXI. Some Transactions in Scalps
+  XXII. Clark Advises Alice
+ XXIII. And So It Ended
+
+
+
+
+
+Alice of Old Vincennes
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+UNDER THE CHERRY TREE
+
+
+Up to the days of Indiana's early statehood, probably as late as 1825,
+there stood, in what is now the beautiful little city of Vincennes on
+the Wabash, the decaying remnant of an old and curiously gnarled cherry
+tree, known as the Roussillon tree, le cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon,
+as the French inhabitants called it, which as long as it lived bore
+fruit remarkable for richness of flavor and peculiar dark ruby depth of
+color. The exact spot where this noble old seedling from la belle
+France flourished, declined, and died cannot be certainly pointed out;
+for in the rapid and happy growth of Vincennes many land-marks once
+notable, among them le cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, have been
+destroyed and the spots where they stood, once familiar to every eye in
+old Vincennes, are now lost in the pleasant confusion of the new town.
+
+The security of certain land titles may have largely depended upon the
+disappearance of old, fixed objects here and there. Early records were
+loosely kept, indeed, scarcely kept at all; many were destroyed by
+designing land speculators, while those most carefully preserved often
+failed to give even a shadowy trace of the actual boundaries of the
+estates held thereby; so that the position of a house or tree not
+infrequently settled an important question of property rights left open
+by a primitive deed. At all events the Roussillon cherry tree
+disappeared long ago, nobody living knows how, and with it also
+vanished, quite as mysteriously, all traces of the once important
+Roussillon estate. Not a record of the name even can be found, it is
+said, in church or county books.
+
+The old, twisted, gum-embossed cherry tree survived every other
+distinguishing feature of what was once the most picturesque and
+romantic place in Vincennes. Just north of it stood, in the early
+French days, a low, rambling cabin surrounded by rude verandas
+overgrown with grapevines. This was the Roussillon place, the most
+pretentious home in all the Wabash country. Its owner was Gaspard
+Roussillon, a successful trader with the Indians. He was rich, for the
+time and the place, influential to a degree, a man of some education,
+who had brought with him to the wilderness a bundle of books and a
+taste for reading.
+
+From faded letters and dimly remembered talk of those who once clung
+fondly to the legends and traditions of old Vincennes, it is drawn that
+the Roussillon cherry tree stood not very far away from the present
+site of the Catholic church, on a slight swell of ground overlooking a
+wide marshy flat and the silver current of the Wabash. If the tree grew
+there, then there too stood the Roussillon house with its cosy log
+rooms, its clay-daubed chimneys and its grapevine-mantled verandas,
+while some distance away and nearer the river the rude fort with its
+huddled officers' quarters seemed to fling out over the wild landscape,
+through its squinting and lopsided port-holes, a gaze of stubborn
+defiance.
+
+Not far off was the little log church, where one good Father Beret, or
+as named by the Indians, who all loved him, Father Blackrobe, performed
+the services of his sacred calling; and scattered all around were the
+cabins of traders, soldiers and woodsmen forming a queer little town,
+the like of which cannot now be seen anywhere on the earth.
+
+It is not known just when Vincennes was first founded; but most
+historians make the probable date very early in the eighteenth century,
+somewhere between 1710 and 1730. In 1810 the Roussillon cherry tree was
+thought by a distinguished botanical letter-writer to be at least fifty
+years old, which would make the date of its planting about 1760.
+Certainly as shown by the time-stained family records upon which this
+story of ours is based, it was a flourishing and wide-topped tree in
+early summer of 1778, its branches loaded to drooping with luscious
+fruit. So low did the dark red clusters hang at one point that a tall
+young girl standing on the ground easily reached the best ones and made
+her lips purple with their juice while she ate them.
+
+That was long ago, measured by what has come to pass on the gentle
+swell of rich country from which Vincennes overlooks the Wabash. The
+new town flourishes notably and its appearance marks the latest limit
+of progress. Electric cars in its streets, electric lights in its
+beautiful homes, the roar of railway trains coming and going in all
+directions, bicycles whirling hither and thither, the most fashionable
+styles of equipages, from brougham to pony-phaeton, make the days of
+flint-lock guns and buckskin trousers seem ages down the past; and yet
+we are looking back over but a little more than a hundred and twenty
+years to see Alice Roussillon standing under the cherry tree and
+holding high a tempting cluster of fruit, while a very short,
+hump-backed youth looks up with longing eyes and vainly reaches for it.
+The tableau is not merely rustic, it is primitive. "Jump!" the girl is
+saying in French, "jump, Jean; jump high!"
+
+Yes, that was very long ago, in the days when women lightly braved what
+the strongest men would shrink from now.
+
+Alice Roussillon was tall, lithe, strongly knit, with an almost perfect
+figure, judging by what the master sculptors carved for the form of
+Venus, and her face was comely and winning, if not absolutely
+beautiful; but the time and the place were vigorously indicated by her
+dress, which was of coarse stuff and simply designed. Plainly she was a
+child of the American wilderness, a daughter of old Vincennes on the
+Wabash in the time that tried men's souls.
+
+"Jump, Jean!" she cried, her face laughing with a show of
+cheek-dimples, an arching of finely sketched brows and the twinkling of
+large blue-gray eyes.
+
+"Jump high and get them!"
+
+While she waved her sun-browned hand holding the cherries aloft, the
+breeze blowing fresh from the southwest tossed her hair so that some
+loose strands shone like rimpled flames. The sturdy little hunchback
+did leap with surprising activity; but the treacherous brown hand went
+higher, so high that the combined altitude of his jump and the reach of
+his unnaturally long arms was overcome. Again and again he sprang
+vainly into the air comically, like a long-legged, squat-bodied frog.
+
+"And you brag of your agility and strength, Jean," she laughingly
+remarked; "but you can't take cherries when they are offered to you.
+What a clumsy bungler you are."
+
+"I can climb and get some," he said with a hideously happy grin, and
+immediately embraced the bole of the tree, up which he began scrambling
+almost as fast as a squirrel.
+
+When he had mounted high enough to be extending a hand for a hold on a
+crotch, Alice grasped his leg near the foot and pulled him down,
+despite his clinging and struggling, until his hands clawed in the soft
+earth at the tree's root, while she held his captive leg almost
+vertically erect.
+
+It was a show of great strength; but Alice looked quite unconscious of
+it, laughing merrily, the dimples deepening in her plump cheeks, her
+forearm, now bared to the elbow, gleaming white and shapely while its
+muscles rippled on account of the jerking and kicking of Jean.
+
+All the time she was holding the cherries high in her other hand,
+shaking them by the twig to which their slender stems attached them,
+and saying in a sweetly tantalizing tone:
+
+"What makes you climb downward after cherries. Jean? What a foolish
+fellow you are, indeed, trying to grabble cherries out of the ground,
+as you do potatoes! I'm sure I didn't suppose that you knew so little
+as that."
+
+Her French was colloquial, but quite good, showing here and there what
+we often notice in the speech of those who have been educated in
+isolated places far from that babel of polite energies which we call
+the world; something that may be described as a bookish cast appearing
+oddly in the midst of phrasing distinctly rustic and local,--a
+peculiarity not easy to transfer from one language to another.
+
+Jean the hunchback was a muscular little deformity and a wonder of good
+nature. His head looked unnaturally large, nestling grotesquely between
+the points of his lifted and distorted shoulders, like a shaggy black
+animal in the fork of a broken tree. He was bellicose in his amiable
+way and never knew just when to acknowledge defeat. How long he might
+have kept up the hopeless struggle with the girl's invincible grip
+would be hard to guess. His release was caused by the approach of a
+third person, who wore the robe of a Catholic priest and the
+countenance of a man who had lived and suffered a long time without
+much loss of physical strength and endurance.
+
+This was Pere Beret, grizzly, short, compact, his face deeply lined,
+his mouth decidedly aslant on account of some lost teeth, and his eyes
+set deep under gray, shaggy brows. Looking at him when his features
+were in repose a first impression might not have been favorable; but
+seeing him smile or hearing him speak changed everything. His voice was
+sweetness itself and his smile won you on the instant. Something like a
+pervading sorrow always seemed to be close behind his eyes and under
+his speech; yet he was a genial, sometimes almost jolly, man, very
+prone to join in the lighter amusements of his people.
+
+"Children, children, my children," he called out as he approached along
+a little pathway leading up from the direction of the church, "what are
+you doing now? Bah there, Alice, will you pull Jean's leg off?"
+
+At first they did not hear him, they were so nearly deafened by their
+own vocal discords.
+
+"Why are you standing on your head with your feet so high in air,
+Jean?" he added. "It's not a polite attitude in the presence of a young
+lady. Are you a pig, that you poke your nose in the dirt?"
+
+Alice now turned her bright head and gave Pere Beret a look of frank
+welcome, which at the same time shot a beam of willful self-assertion.
+
+"My daughter, are you trying to help Jean up the tree feet foremost?"
+the priest added, standing where he had halted just outside of the
+straggling yard fence.
+
+He had his hands on his hips and was quietly chuckling at the scene
+before him, as one who, although old, sympathized with the natural and
+harmless sportiveness of young people and would as lief as not join in
+a prank or two.
+
+"You see what I'm doing, Father Beret," said Alice, "I am preventing a
+great damage to you. You will maybe lose a good many cherry pies and
+dumplings if I let Jean go. He was climbing the tree to pilfer the
+fruit; so I pulled him down, you understand."
+
+"Ta, ta!" exclaimed the good man, shaking his gray head; "we must
+reason with the child. Let go his leg, daughter, I will vouch for him;
+eh, Jean?"
+
+Alice released the hunchback, then laughed gayly and tossed the cluster
+of cherries into his hand, whereupon he began munching them voraciously
+and talking at the same time.
+
+"I knew I could get them," he boasted; "and see, I have them now." He
+hopped around, looking like a species of ill-formed monkey.
+
+Pere Beret came and leaned on the low fence close to Alice. She was
+almost as tall as he.
+
+"The sun scorches to-day," he said, beginning to mop his furrowed face
+with a red-flowered cotton handkerchief; "and from the look of the sky
+yonder," pointing southward, "it is going to bring on a storm. How is
+Madame Roussillon to-day?"
+
+"She is complaining as she usually does when she feels extremely well,"
+said Alice; "that's why I had to take her place at the oven and bake
+pies. I got hot and came out to catch a bit of this breeze. Oh, but you
+needn't smile and look greedy, Pere Beret, the pies are not for your
+teeth!"
+
+"My daughter, I am not a glutton, I hope; I had meat not two hours
+since--some broiled young squirrels with cress, sent me by Rene de
+Ronville. He never forgets his old father."
+
+"Oh, I never forget you either, mon pere; I thought of you to-day every
+time I spread a crust and filled it with cherries; and when I took out
+a pie all brown and hot, the red juice bubbling out of it so good
+smelling and tempting, do you know what I said to myself?"
+
+"How could I know, my child?"
+
+"Well, I thought this: 'Not a single bite of that pie does Father Beret
+get.'"
+
+"Why so, daughter?"
+
+"Because you said it was bad of me to read novels and told Mother
+Roussillon to hide them from me. I've had any amount of trouble about
+it."
+
+"Ta, ta! read the good books that I gave you. They will soon kill the
+taste for these silly romances."
+
+"I tried," said Alice; "I tried very hard, and it's no use; your books
+are dull and stupidly heavy. What do I care about something that a
+queer lot of saints did hundreds of years ago in times of plague and
+famine? Saints must have been poky people, and it is poky people who
+care to read about them, I think. I like reading about brave, heroic
+men and beautiful women, and war and love."
+
+Pere Beret looked away with a curious expression in his face, his eyes
+half closed.
+
+"And I'll tell you now, Father Beret," Alice went on after a pause, "no
+more claret and pies do you get until I can have my own sort of books
+back again to read as I please." She stamped her moccasin-shod foot
+with decided energy.
+
+The good priest broke into a hearty laugh, and taking off his cap of
+grass-straw mechanically scratched his bald head. He looked at the
+tall, strong girl before him for a moment or two, and it would have
+been hard for the best physiognomist to decide just how much of
+approval and how much of disapproval that look really signified.
+
+Although, as Father Beret had said, the sun's heat was violent, causing
+that gentle soul to pass his bundled handkerchief with a wiping
+circular motion over his bald and bedewed pate, the wind was momently
+freshening, while up from behind the trees on the horizon beyond the
+river, a cloud was rising blue-black, tumbled, and grim against the sky.
+
+"Well," said the priest, evidently trying hard to exchange his laugh
+for a look of regretful resignation, "you will have your own way, my
+child, and--"
+
+"Then you will have pies galore and no end of claret!" she interrupted,
+at the same time stepping to the withe-tied and peg-latched gate of the
+yard and opening it. "Come in, you dear, good Father, before the rain
+shall begin, and sit with me on the gallery" (the creole word for
+veranda) "till the storm is over."
+
+Father Beret seemed not loath to enter, albeit he offered a weak
+protest against delaying some task he had in hand. Alice reached forth
+and pulled him in, then reclosed the queer little gate and pegged it.
+She caressingly passed her arm through his and looked into his
+weather-stained old face with childlike affection.
+
+There was not a photographer's camera to be had in those days; but what
+if a tourist with one in hand could have been there to take a snapshot
+at the priest and the maiden as they walked arm in arm to that squat
+little veranda! The picture to-day would be worth its weight in a
+first-water diamond. It would include the cabin, the cherry-tree, a
+glimpse of the raw, wild background and a sharp portrait-group of Pere
+Beret, Alice, and Jean the hunchback. To compare it with a photograph
+of the same spot now would give a perfect impression of the historic
+atmosphere, color and conditions which cannot be set in words. But we
+must not belittle the power of verbal description. What if a thoroughly
+trained newspaper reporter had been given the freedom of old Vincennes
+on the Wabash during the first week of June, 1778, and we now had his
+printed story! What a supplement to the photographer's pictures! Well,
+we have neither photographs nor graphic report; yet there they are
+before us, the gowned and straw-capped priest, the fresh-faced,
+coarsely-clad and vigorous girl, the grotesque little hunchback, all
+just as real as life itself. Each of us can see them, even with closed
+eyes. Led by that wonderful guide, Imagination, we step back a century
+and more to look over a scene at once strangely attractive and
+unspeakably forlorn.
+
+What was it that drew people away from the old countries, from the
+cities, the villages and the vineyards of beautiful France, for
+example, to dwell in the wilderness, amid wild beasts and wilder savage
+Indians, with a rude cabin for a home and the exposures and hardships
+of pioneer life for their daily experience?
+
+Men like Gaspard Roussillon are of a distinct stamp. Take him as he
+was. Born in France, on the banks of the Rhone near Avignon, he came as
+a youth to Canada, whence he drifted on the tide of adventure this way
+and that, until at last he found himself, with a wife, at Post
+Vincennes, that lonely picket of religion and trade, which was to
+become the center of civilizing energy for the great Northwestern
+Territory. M. Roussillon had no children of his own; so his kind heart
+opened freely to two fatherless and motherless waifs. These were Alice,
+now called Alice Roussillon, and the hunchback, Jean. The former was
+twelve years old, when he adopted her, a child of Protestant parents,
+while Jean had been taken, when a mere babe, after his parents had been
+killed and scalped by Indians. Madame Roussillon, a professed invalid,
+whose appetite never failed and whose motherly kindness expressed
+itself most often through strains of monotonous falsetto scolding, was
+a woman of little education and no refinement; while her husband clung
+tenaciously to his love of books, especially to the romances most in
+vogue when he took leave of France.
+
+M. Roussillon had been, in a way, Alice's teacher, though not greatly
+inclined to abet Father Beret in his kindly efforts to make a Catholic
+of the girl, and most treacherously disposed toward the good priest in
+the matter of his well-meant attempts to prevent her from reading and
+re-reading the aforesaid romances. But for many weeks past Gaspard
+Roussillon had been absent from home, looking after his trading schemes
+with the Indians; and Pere Beret acting on the suggestion of the
+proverb about the absent cat and the playing mouse, had formed an
+alliance offensive and defensive with Madame Roussillon, in which it
+was strictly stipulated that all novels and romances were to be
+forcibly taken and securely hidden away from Mademoiselle Alice; which,
+to the best of Madame Roussillon's ability, had accordingly been done.
+
+Now, while the wind strengthened and the softly booming summer shower
+came on apace, the heavy cloud lifting as it advanced and showing under
+it the dark gray sheet of the rain, Pere Beret and Alice sat under the
+clapboard roof behind the vines of the veranda and discussed, what was
+generally uppermost in the priest's mind upon such occasions, the good
+of Alice's immortal soul,--a subject not absorbingly interesting to her
+at any time.
+
+It was a standing grief to the good old priest, this strange perversity
+of the girl in the matter of religious duty, as he saw it. True she had
+a faithful guardian in Gaspard Roussillon; but, much as he had done to
+aid the church's work in general, for he was always vigorous and
+liberal, he could not be looked upon as a very good Catholic; and of
+course his influence was not effective in the right direction. But then
+Pere Beret saw no reason why, in due time and with patient work, aided
+by Madame Roussillon and notwithstanding Gaspard's treachery, he might
+not safely lead Alice, whom he loved as a dear child, into the arms of
+the Holy Church, to serve which faithfully, at all hazards and in all
+places, was his highest aim.
+
+"Ah, my child," he was saying, "you are a sweet, good girl, after all,
+much better than you make yourself out to be. Your duty will control
+you; you do it nobly at last, my child."
+
+"True enough, Father Beret, true enough!" she responded, laughing,
+"your perception is most excellent, which I will prove to you
+immediately."
+
+She rose while speaking and went into the house.
+
+"I'll return in a minute or two," she called back from a region which
+Pere Beret well knew was that of the pantry; "don't get impatient and
+go away!"
+
+Pere Beret laughed softly at the preposterous suggestion that he would
+even dream of going out in the rain, which was now roaring heavily on
+the loose board roof, and miss a cut of cherry pie--a cherry pie of
+Alice's making! And the Roussillon claret, too, was always excellent.
+"Ah, child," he thought, "your old Father is not going away."
+
+She presently returned, bearing on a wooden tray a ruby-stained pie and
+a short, stout bottle flanked by two glasses.
+
+"Of course I'm better than I sometimes appear to be," she said, almost
+humbly, but with mischief still in her voice and eyes, "and I shall get
+to be very good when I have grown old. The sweetness of my present
+nature is in this pie."
+
+She set the tray on a three-legged stool which she pushed close to him.
+
+"There now," she said, "let the rain come, you'll be happy, rain or
+shine, while the pie and wine last, I'll be bound."
+
+Pere Beret fell to eating right heartily, meantime handing Jean a
+liberal piece of the luscious pie.
+
+"It is good, my daughter, very good, indeed," the priest remarked with
+his mouth full. "Madame Roussillon has not neglected your culinary
+education." Alice filled a glass for him. It was Bordeaux and very
+fragrant. The bouquet reminded him of his sunny boyhood in France, of
+his journey up to Paris and of his careless, joy-brimmed youth in the
+gay city. How far away, how misty, yet how thrillingly sweet it all
+was! He sat with half closed eyes awhile, sipping and dreaming.
+
+The rain lasted nearly two hours; but the sun was out again when Pere
+Beret took leave of his young friend. They had been having another
+good-natured quarrel over the novels, and Madame Roussillon had come
+out on the veranda to join in.
+
+"I've hidden every book of them," said Madame, a stout and swarthy
+woman whose pearl-white teeth were her only mark of beauty. Her voice
+indicated great stubbornness.
+
+"Good, good, you have done your very duty, Madame," said Pere Beret,
+with immense approval in his charming voice.
+
+"But, Father, you said awhile ago that I should have my own way about
+this," Alice spoke up with spirit; "and on the strength of that remark
+of yours I gave you the pie and wine. You've eaten my pie and swigged
+the wine, and now--"
+
+Pere Beret put on his straw cap, adjusting it carefully over the
+shining dome out of which had come so many thoughts of wisdom, kindness
+and human sympathy. This done, he gently laid a hand on Alice's bright
+crown of hair and said:
+
+"Bless you, my child. I will pray to the Prince of Peace for you as
+long as I live, and I will never cease to beg the Holy Virgin to
+intercede for you and lead you to the Holy Church."
+
+He turned and went away; but when he was no farther than the gate,
+Alice called out:
+
+"O Father Beret, I forgot to show you something!"
+
+She ran forth to him and added in a low tone:
+
+"You know that Madame Roussillon has hidden all the novels from me."
+
+She was fumbling to get something out of the loose front of her dress.
+
+"Well, just take a glance at this, will you?" and she showed him a
+little leather bound volume, much cracked along the hinges of the back.
+
+It was Manon Lescaut, that dreadful romance by the famous Abbe Prevost.
+
+Pere Beret frowned and went his way shaking his head; but before he
+reached his little hut near the church he was laughing in spite of
+himself.
+
+"She's not so bad, not so bad," he thought aloud, "it's only her young,
+independent spirit taking the bit for a wild run. In her sweet soul she
+is as good as she is pure."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A LETTER FROM AFAR
+
+
+Although Father Beret was for many years a missionary on the Wabash,
+most of the time at Vincennes, the fact that no mention of him can be
+found in the records is not stranger than many other things connected
+with the old town's history. He was, like nearly all the men of his
+calling in that day, a self-effacing and modest hero, apparently quite
+unaware that he deserved attention. He and Father Gibault, whose name
+is so beautifully and nobly connected with the stirring achievements of
+Colonel George Rogers Clark, were close friends and often companions.
+Probably Father Gibault himself, whose fame will never fade, would have
+been to-day as obscure as Father Beret, but for the opportunity given
+him by Clark to fix his name in the list of heroic patriots who
+assisted in winning the great Northwest from the English.
+
+Vincennes, even in the earliest days of its history, somehow kept up
+communication and, considering the circumstances, close relations with
+New Orleans. It was much nearer Detroit; but the Louisiana colony stood
+next to France in the imagination and longing of priests, voyageurs,
+coureurs de bois and reckless adventurers who had Latin blood in their
+veins. Father Beret first came to Vincennes from New Orleans, the
+voyage up the Mississippi, Ohio, and Wabash, in a pirogue, lasting
+through a whole summer and far into the autumn. Since his arrival the
+post had experienced many vicissitudes, and at the time in which our
+story opens the British government claimed right of dominion over the
+great territory drained by the Wabash, and, indeed, over a large,
+indefinitely outlined part of the North American continent lying above
+Mexico; a claim just then being vigorously questioned, flintlock in
+hand, by the Anglo-American colonies.
+
+Of course the handful of French people at Vincennes, so far away from
+every center of information, and wholly occupied with their trading,
+trapping and missionary work, were late finding out that war existed
+between England and her colonies. Nor did it really matter much with
+them, one way or another. They felt secure in their lonely situation,
+and so went on selling their trinkets, weapons, domestic implements,
+blankets and intoxicating liquors to the Indians, whom they held bound
+to them with a power never possessed by any other white dwellers in the
+wilderness. Father Beret was probably subordinate to Father Gibault. At
+all events the latter appears to have had nominal charge of Vincennes,
+and it can scarcely be doubted that he left Father Beret on the Wabash,
+while he went to live and labor for a time at Kaskaskia beyond the
+plains of Illinois.
+
+It is a curious fact that religion and the power of rum and brandy
+worked together successfully for a long time in giving the French posts
+almost absolute influence over the wild and savage men by whom they
+were always surrounded. The good priests deprecated the traffic in
+liquors and tried hard to control it, but soldiers of fortune and
+reckless traders were in the majority, their interests taking
+precedence of all spiritual demands and carrying everything along. What
+could the brave missionaries do but make the very best of a perilous
+situation?
+
+In those days wine was drunk by almost everybody, its use at table and
+as an article of incidental refreshment and social pleasure being
+practically universal; wherefore the steps of reform in the matter of
+intemperance were but rudimentary and in all places beset by well-nigh
+insurmountable difficulties. In fact the exigencies of frontier life
+demanded, perhaps, the very stimulus which, when over indulged in,
+caused so much evil. Malaria loaded the air, and the most efficacious
+drugs now at command were then undiscovered or could not be had.
+Intoxicants were the only popular specific. Men drank to prevent
+contracting ague, drank again, between rigors, to cure it, and yet
+again to brace themselves during convalescence.
+
+But if the effect of rum as a beverage had strong allurement for the
+white man, it made an absolute slave of the Indian, who never hesitated
+for a moment to undertake any task, no matter how hard, bear any
+privation, even the most terrible, or brave any danger, although it
+might demand reckless desperation, if in in the end a well filled
+bottle or jug appeared as his reward.
+
+Of course the traders did not overlook such a source of power.
+Alcoholic liquor became their implement of almost magical work in
+controlling the lives, labors, and resources of the Indians. The
+priests with their captivating story of the Cross had a large influence
+in softening savage natures and averting many an awful danger; but when
+everything else failed, rum always came to the rescue of a threatened
+French post.
+
+We need not wonder, then, when we are told that Father Beret made no
+sign of distress or disapproval upon being informed of the arrival of a
+boat loaded with rum, brandy or gin. It was Rene de Ronville who
+brought the news, the same Rene already mentioned as having given the
+priest a plate of squirrels. He was sitting on the doorsill of Father
+Beret's hut, when the old man reached it after his visit at the
+Roussillon home, and held in his hand a letter which he appeared proud
+to deliver.
+
+"A batteau and seven men, with a cargo of liquor, came during the
+rain," he said, rising and taking off his curious cap, which, made of
+an animal's skin, had a tail jauntily dangling from its crown-tip; "and
+here is a letter for you, Father. The batteau is from New Orleans.
+Eight men started with it; but one went ashore to hunt and was killed
+by an Indian."
+
+Father Beret took the letter without apparent interest and said:
+
+"Thank you, my son, sit down again; the door-log is not wetter than the
+stools inside; I will sit by you."
+
+The wind had driven a flood of rain into the cabin through the open
+door, and water twinkled in puddles here and there on the floor's
+puncheons. They sat down side by side, Father Beret fingering the
+letter in an absent-minded way.
+
+"There'll be a jolly time of it to-night," Rene de Ronville remarked,
+"a roaring time."
+
+"Why do you say that, my son?" the priest demanded.
+
+"The wine and the liquor," was the reply; "much drinking will be done.
+The men have all been dry here for some time, you know, and are as
+thirsty as sand. They are making ready to enjoy themselves down at the
+river house."
+
+"Ah, the poor souls!" sighed Father Beret, speaking as one whose
+thoughts were wandering far away.
+
+"Why don't you read your letter, Father?" Rene added.
+
+The priest started, turned the soiled square of paper over in his hand,
+then thrust it inside his robe.
+
+"It can wait," he said. Then, changing his voice; "the squirrels you
+gave me were excellent, my son. It was good of you to think of me," he
+added, laying his hand on Rene's arm.
+
+"Oh, I'm glad if I have pleased you, Father Beret, for you are so kind
+to me always, and to everybody. When I killed the squirrels I said to
+myself: 'These are young, juicy and tender, Father Beret must have
+these,' so I brought them along."
+
+The young man rose to go; for he was somehow impressed that Father
+Beret must wish opportunity to read his letter, and would prefer to be
+left alone with it. But the priest pulled him down again.
+
+"Stay a while," he said, "I have not had a talk with you for some time."
+
+Rene looked a trifle uneasy.
+
+"You will not drink any to-night, my son," Father Beret added. "You
+must not; do you hear?"
+
+The young man's eyes and mouth at once began to have a sullen
+expression; evidently he was not pleased and felt rebellious; but it
+was hard for him to resist Father Beret, whom he loved, as did every
+soul in the post. The priest's voice was sweet and gentle, yet positive
+to a degree. Rene did not say a word.
+
+"Promise me that you will not taste liquor this night," Father Beret
+went on, grasping the young man's arm more firmly; "promise me, my son,
+promise me."
+
+Still Rene was silent. The men did not look at each other, but gazed
+away across the country beyond the Wabash to where a glory from the
+western sun flamed on the upper rim of a great cloud fragment creeping
+along the horizon. Warm as the day had been, a delicious coolness now
+began to temper the air; for the wind had shifted into the northwest. A
+meadowlark sang dreamingly in the wild grass of the low lands hard by,
+over which two or three prairie hawks hovered with wings that beat
+rapidly.
+
+"Eh bien, I must go," said Rene presently, getting to his feet nimbly
+and evading Father Beret's hand which would have held him.
+
+"Not to the river house, my son?" said the priest appealingly.
+
+"No, not there; I have another letter; one for M'sieu' Roussillon; it
+came by the boat too. I go to give it to Madame Roussillon."
+
+Rene de Ronville was a dark, weather-stained young fellow, neither tall
+nor short, wearing buckskin moccasins, trousers and tunic. His eyes
+were dark brown, keen, quick-moving, set well under heavy brows. A
+razor had probably never touched his face, and his thin, curly beard
+crinkled over his strongly turned cheeks and chin, while his moustaches
+sprang out quite fiercely above his full-lipped, almost sensual mouth.
+He looked wiry and active, a man not to be lightly reckoned with in a
+trial of bodily strength and will power.
+
+Father Beret's face and voice changed on the instant. He laughed dryly
+and said, with a sly gleam in his eyes:
+
+"You could spend the evening pleasantly with Madame Roussillon and
+Jean. Jean, you know, is a very amusing fellow."
+
+Rene brought forth the letter of which he had spoken and held it up
+before Father Beret's face.
+
+"Maybe you think I haven't any letter for M'sieu' Roussillon," he
+blurted; "and maybe you are quite certain that I am not going to the
+house to take the letter."
+
+"Monsieur Roussillon is absent, you know," Father Beret suggested. "But
+cherry pies are just as good while he's gone as when he's at home, and
+I happen to know that there are some particularly delicious ones in the
+pantry of Madame Roussillon. Mademoiselle Alice gave me a juicy sample;
+but then I dare say you do not care to have your pie served by her
+hand. It would interfere with your appetite; eh, my son?"
+
+Rene turned short about wagging his head and laughing, and so with his
+back to the priest he strode away along the wet path leading to the
+Roussillon place.
+
+Father Beret gazed after him, his face relaxing to a serious expression
+in which a trace of sadness and gloom spread like an elusive twilight.
+He took out his letter, but did not glance at it, simply holding it
+tightly gripped in his sinewy right hand. Then his old eyes stared
+vacantly, as eyes do when their sight is cast back many, many years
+into the past. The missive was from beyond the sea--he knew the
+handwriting--a waft of the flowers of Avignon seemed to rise out of it,
+as if by the pressure of his grasp.
+
+A stoop-shouldered, burly man went by, leading a pair of goats, a kid
+following. He was making haste excitedly, keeping the goats at a lively
+trot.
+
+"Bon jour, Pere Beret," he flung out breezily, and walked rapidly on.
+
+"Ah, ah; his mind is busy with the newly arrived cargo," thought the
+old priest, returning the salutation; "his throat aches for the
+liquor,--the poor man."
+
+Then he read again the letter's superscription and made a faltering
+move, as if to break the seal. His hands trembled violently, his face
+looked gray and drawn.
+
+"Come on, you brutes," cried the receding man, jerking the thongs of
+skin by which he led the goats.
+
+Father Beret rose and turned into his damp little hut, where the light
+was dim on the crucifix hanging opposite the door against the
+clay-daubed wall. It was a bare, unsightly, clammy room; a rude bed on
+one side, a shelf for table and two or three wooden stools constituting
+the furniture, while the uneven puncheons of the floor wabbled and
+clattered under the priest's feet.
+
+An unopened letter is always a mysterious thing. We who receive three
+or four mails every day, scan each little paper square with a
+speculative eye. Most of us know what sweet uncertainty hangs on the
+opening of envelopes whose contents may be almost anything except
+something important, and what a vague yet delicious thrill comes with
+the snip of the paper knife; but if we be in a foreign land and long
+years absent from home, then is a letter subtly powerful to move us,
+even more before it is opened than after it is read.
+
+It had been many years since a letter from home had come to Father
+Beret. The last, before the one now in his hand, had made him ill of
+nostalgia, fairly shaking his iron determination never to quit for a
+moment his life work as a missionary. Ever since that day he had found
+it harder to meet the many and stern demands of a most difficult and
+exacting duty. Now the mere touch of the paper in his hand gave him a
+sense of returning weakness, dissatisfaction, and longing. The home of
+his boyhood, the rushing of the Rhone, a seat in a shady nook of the
+garden, Madeline, his sister, prattling beside him, and his mother
+singing somewhere about the house--it all came back and went over him
+and through him, making his heart sink strangely, while another voice,
+the sweetest ever heard--but she was ineffable and her memory a
+forbidden fragrance.
+
+Father Beret tottered across the forlorn little room and knelt before
+the crucifix holding his clasped hands high, the letter pressed between
+them. His lips moved in prayer, but made no sound; his whole frame
+shook violently.
+
+It would be unpardonable desecration to enter the chamber of Father
+Beret's soul and look upon his sacred and secret trouble; nor must we
+even speculate as to its particulars. The good old man writhed and
+wrestled before the cross for a long time, until at last he seemed to
+receive the calmness and strength he prayed for so fervently; then he
+rose, tore the letter into pieces so small that not a word remained
+whole, and squeezed them so firmly together that they were compressed
+into a tiny, solid ball, which he let fall through a crack between the
+floor puncheons. After waiting twenty years for that letter, hungry as
+his heart was, he did not even open it when at last it arrived. He
+would never know what message it bore. The link between him and the old
+sweet days was broken forever. Now with God's help he could do his work
+to the end.
+
+He went and stood in his doorway, leaning against the side. Was it a
+mere coincidence that the meadowlark flew up just then from its
+grass-tuft, and came to the roof's comb overhead, where it lit with a
+light yet audible stroke of its feet and began fluting its tender,
+lonesome-sounding strain? If Father Beret heard it he gave no sign of
+recognition; very likely he was thinking about the cargo of liquor and
+how he could best counteract its baleful influence. He looked toward
+the "river house," as the inhabitants had named a large shanty, which
+stood on a bluff of the Wabash not far from where the road-bridge at
+present crosses, and saw men gathering there.
+
+Meantime Rene de Ronville had delivered Madame Roussillon's letter with
+due promptness. Of course such a service demanded pie and claret. What
+still better pleased him, Alice chose to be more amiable than was
+usually her custom when he called. They sat together in the main room
+of the house where M. Roussillon kept his books, his curiosities of
+Indian manufacture collected here and there, and his surplus firearms,
+swords, pistols, and knives, ranged not unpleasingly around the walls.
+
+Of course, along with the letter, Rene bore the news, so interesting to
+himself, of the boat's tempting cargo just discharged at the river
+house. Alice understood her friend's danger--felt it in the intense
+enthusiasm of his voice and manner. She had once seen the men carousing
+on a similar occasion when she was but a child, and the impression then
+made still remained in her memory. Instinctively she resolved to hold
+Rene by one means or another away from the river house if possible. So
+she managed to keep him occupied eating pie, sipping watered claret and
+chatting until night came on and Madame Roussillon brought in a lamp.
+Then he hurriedly snatched his cap from the floor beside him and got up
+to go.
+
+"Come and look at my handiwork," Alice quickly said; "my shelf of pies,
+I mean." She led him to the pantry, where a dozen or more of the cherry
+pates were ranged in order. "I made every one of them this morning and
+baked them; had them all out of the oven before the rain came up. Don't
+you think me a wonder of cleverness and industry? Father Beret was
+polite enough to flatter me; but you--you just eat what you want and
+say nothing! You are not polite, Monsieur Rene de Ronville."
+
+"I've been showing you what I thought of your goodies," said Rene;
+"eating's better than talking, you know; so I'll just take one more,"
+and he helped himself. "Isn't that compliment enough?"
+
+"A few such would make me another hot day's work," she replied,
+laughing. "Pretty talk would be cheaper and more satisfactory in the
+long run. Even the flour in these pates I ground with my own hand in an
+Indian mortar. That was hard work too."
+
+By this time Rene had forgotten the river house and the liquor. With
+softening eyes he gazed at Alice's rounded cheeks and sheeny hair over
+which the light from the curious earthen lamp she bore in her hand
+flickered most effectively. He loved her madly; but his fear of her was
+more powerful than his love. She gave him no opportunity to speak what
+he felt, having ever ready a quick, bright change of mood and manner
+when she saw him plucking up courage to address her in a sentimental
+way. Their relations had long been somewhat familiar, which was but
+natural, considering their youth and the circumstances of their daily
+life; but Alice somehow had kept a certain distance open between them,
+so that very warm friendship could not suddenly resolve itself into a
+troublesome passion on Rene's part.
+
+We need not attempt to analyze a young girl's feeling and motives in
+such a case; what she does and what she thinks are mysteries even to
+her own understanding. The influence most potent in shaping the
+rudimentary character of Alice Tarleton (called Roussillon) had been
+only such as a lonely frontier post could generate. Her associations
+with men and women had, with few exceptions, been unprofitable in an
+educational way, while her reading in M. Roussillon's little library
+could not have given her any practical knowledge of manners and life.
+
+She was fond of Rene de Ronville, and it would have been quite in
+accordance with the law of ordinary human forces, indeed almost the
+inevitable thing, for her to love and marry him in the fullness of
+time; but her imagination was outgrowing her surroundings. Books had
+given her a world of romance wherein she moved at will, meeting a class
+of people far different from those who actually shared her experiences.
+Her day-dreams and her night-dreams partook much more of what she had
+read and imagined than of what she had seen and heard in the raw little
+world around her.
+
+Her affection for Rene was interfered with by her large admiration for
+the heroic, masterful and magnetic knights who charged through the
+romances of the Roussillon collection. For although Rene was
+unquestionably brave and more than passably handsome, he had no armor,
+no war-horse, no shining lance and embossed shield--the difference,
+indeed, was great.
+
+Those who love to contend against the fatal drift of our age toward
+over-education could find in Alice Tarleton, foster daughter of Gaspard
+Roussillon, a primitive example, an elementary case in point. What
+could her book education do but set up stumbling blocks in the path of
+happiness? She was learning to prefer the ideal to the real. Her soul
+was developing itself as best it could for the enjoyment of conditions
+and things absolutely foreign to the possibilities of her lot in life.
+
+Perhaps it was the light and heat of imagination, shining out through
+Alice's face, which gave her beauty such a fascinating power. Rene saw
+it and felt its electrical stroke send a sweet shiver through his
+heart, while he stood before her.
+
+"You are very beautiful to-night Alice," he presently said, with a
+suddenness which took even her alertness by surprise. A flush rose to
+his dark face and immediately gave way to a grayish pallor. His heart
+came near stopping on the instant, he was so shocked by his own daring;
+but he laid a hand on her hair, stroking it softly.
+
+Just a moment she was at a loss, looking a trifle embarrassed, then
+with a merry laugh she stepped aside and said:
+
+"That sounds better, Monsieur Rene de Ronville much better; you will be
+as polite as Father Beret after a little more training."
+
+She slipped past him while speaking and made her way back again to the
+main room, whence she called to him:
+
+"Come here, I've something to show you."
+
+He obeyed, a sheepish trace on his countenance betraying his
+self-consciousness.
+
+When he came near Alice she was taking from its buckhorn hook on the
+wall a rapier, one of a beautiful pair hanging side by side.
+
+"Papa Roussillon gave me these," she said with great animation. "He
+bought them of an Indian who had kept them a long time; where he came
+across them he would not tell; but look how beautiful! Did you ever see
+anything so fine?"
+
+Guard and hilt were of silver; the blade, although somewhat corroded,
+still showed the fine wavy lines of Damascus steel and traces of
+delicate engraving, while in the end of the hilt was set a large oval
+turquoise.
+
+"A very queer present to give a girl," said Rene; "what can you do with
+them?"
+
+A captivating flash of playfulness came into her face and she sprang
+backward, giving the sword a semicircular turn with her wrist. The
+blade sent forth a keen hiss as it cut the air close, very close to
+Rene's nose. He jerked his head and flung up his hand.
+
+She laughed merrily, standing beautifully poised before him, the
+rapier's point slightly elevated. Her short skirt left her feet and
+ankles free to show their graceful proportions and the perfect pose in
+which they held her supple body.
+
+"You see what I can do with the colechemarde, eh, Monsieur Rene de
+Ronville!" she exclaimed, giving him a smile which fairly blinded him.
+"Notice how very near to your neck I can thrust and yet not touch it.
+Now!"
+
+She darted the keen point under his chin and drew it away so quickly
+that the stroke was like a glint of sunlight.
+
+"What do you think of that as a nice and accurate piece of skill?"
+
+She again resumed her pose, the right foot advanced, the left arm well
+back, her lissome, finely developed body leaning slightly forward.
+
+Rene's hands were up before his face in a defensive position, palms
+outward.
+
+Just then a chorus of men's voices sounded in the distance. The river
+house was beginning its carousal with a song. Alice let fall her
+sword's point and listened.
+
+Rene looked about for his cap.
+
+"I must be going," he said.
+
+Another and louder swish of the rapier made him pirouette and dodge
+again with great energy.
+
+"Don't," he cried, "that's dangerous; you'll put out my eyes; I never
+saw such a girl!"
+
+She laughed at him and kept on whipping the air dangerously near his
+eyes, until she had driven him backward as far as he could squeeze
+himself into a comer of the room.
+
+Madame Roussillon came to the door from the kitchen and stood looking
+in and laughing, with her hands on her hips. By this time the rapier
+was making a criss-cross pattern of flashing lines close to the young
+man's head while Alice, in the enjoyment of her exercise, seemed to
+concentrate all the glowing rays of her beauty in her face, her eyes
+dancing merrily.
+
+"Quit, now, Alice," he begged, half in fun and half in abject fear;
+"please quit--I surrender!"
+
+She thrust to the wall on either side of him, then springing lightly
+backward a pace, stood at guard. Her thick yellow hair had fallen over
+her neck and shoulders in a loose wavy mass, out of which her face
+beamed with a bewitching effect upon her captive.
+
+Rene, glad enough to have a cessation of his peril, stood laughing
+dryly; but the singing down at the river house was swelling louder and
+he made another movement to go.
+
+"You surrendered, you remember," cried Alice, renewing the sword-play;
+"sit down on the chair there and make yourself comfortable. You are not
+going down yonder to-night; you are going to stay here and talk with me
+and Mother Roussillon; we are lonesome and you are good company."
+
+A shot rang out keen and clear; there was a sudden tumult that broke up
+the distant singing; and presently more firing at varying intervals cut
+the night air from the direction of the river.
+
+Jean, the hunchback, came in to say that there was a row of some sort;
+he had seen men running across the common as if in pursuit of a
+fugitive; but the moonlight was so dim that he could not be sure what
+it all meant.
+
+Rene picked up his cap and bolted out of the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE RAPE OF THE DEMIJOHN
+
+
+The row down at the river house was more noise than fight, so far as
+results seemed to indicate. It was all about a small dame jeanne of
+fine brandy, which an Indian by the name of Long-Hair had seized and
+run off with at the height of the carousal. He must have been soberer
+than his pursuers, or naturally fleeter; for not one of them could
+catch him, or even keep long in sight of him. Some pistols were emptied
+while the race was on, and two or three of the men swore roundly to
+having seen Long-Hair jump sidewise and stagger, as if one of the shots
+had taken effect. But, although the moon was shining, he someway
+disappeared, they could not understand just how, far down beside the
+river below the fort and the church.
+
+It was not a very uncommon thing for an Indian to steal what he wanted,
+and in most cases light punishment followed conviction; but it was felt
+to be a capital offense for an Indian or anybody else to rape a
+demijohn of fine brandy, especially one sent as a present, by a friend
+in New Orleans, to Lieutenant Governor Abbott, who had until recently
+been the commandant of the post. Every man at the river house
+recognized and resented the enormity of Long-Hair's crime and each was,
+for the moment, ready to be his judge and his executioner. He had
+broken at once every rule of frontier etiquette and every bond of
+sympathy. Nor was Long-Hair ignorant of the danger involved in his
+daring enterprise. He had beforehand carefully and stolidly weighed all
+the conditions, and true to his Indian nature, had concluded that a
+little wicker covered bottle of brandy was well worth the risk of his
+life. So he had put himself in condition for a great race by slipping
+out and getting rid of his weapons and all surplus weight of clothes.
+
+This incident brought the drinking bout at the river house to a sudden
+end; but nothing further came of it that night, and no record of it
+would be found in these pages, but for the fact that Long-Hair
+afterwards became an important character in the stirring historical
+drama which had old Vincennes for its center of energy.
+
+Rene de Ronville probably felt himself in bad luck when he arrived at
+the river house just too late to share in the liquor or to join in
+chasing the bold thief. He listened with interest, however, to the
+story of Long-Hair's capture of the commandant's demijohn and could not
+refrain from saying that if he had been present there would have been a
+quite different result.
+
+"I would have shot him before he got to that door," he said, drawing
+his heavy flint-lock pistol and going through the motions of one aiming
+quickly and firing. Indeed, so vigorously in earnest was he with the
+pantomime, that he actually did fire, unintentionally of course,--the
+ball burying itself in the door-jamb.
+
+He was laughed at by those present for being more excited than they who
+witnessed the whole thing. One of them, a leathery-faced and grizzled
+old sinner, leered at him contemptuously and said in queer French, with
+a curious accent caught from long use of backwoods English:
+
+"Listen how the boy brags! Ye might think, to hear Rene talk, that he
+actually amounted to a big pile."
+
+This personage was known to every soul in Vincennes as Oncle Jazon, and
+when Oncle Jazon spoke the whole town felt bound to listen.
+
+"An' how well he shoots, too," he added with an intolerable wink;
+"aimed at the door and hit the post. Certainly Long-Hair would have
+been in great danger! O yes, he'd 'ave killed Long-Hair at the first
+shot, wouldn't he though!"
+
+Oncle Jazon had the air of a large man, but the stature of a small one;
+in fact he was shriveled bodily to a degree which suggested comparison
+with a sun-dried wisp of hickory bark; and when he chuckled, as he was
+now doing, his mouth puckered itself until it looked like a scar on his
+face. From cap to moccasins he had every mark significant of a
+desperate character; and yet there was about him something that
+instantly commanded the confidence of rough men,--the look of
+self-sufficiency and superior capability always to be found in
+connection with immense will power. His sixty years of exposure,
+hardship, and danger seemed to have but toughened his physique and
+strengthened his vitality. Out of his small hazel eyes gleamed a light
+as keen as ice.
+
+"All right, Oncle Jazon," said Rene laughing and blowing the smoke out
+of his pistol; "'twas you all the same who let Long-Hair trot off with
+the Governor's brandy, not I. If you could have hit even a door-post it
+might have been better."
+
+Oncle Jazon took off his cap and looked down into it in a way he had
+when about to say something final.
+
+"Ventrebleu! I did not shoot at Long-Hair at all," he said, speaking
+slowly, "because the scoundrel was unarmed. He didn't have on even a
+knife, and he was havin' enough to do dodgin' the bullets that the rest
+of 'em were plumpin' at 'im without any compliments from me to bother
+'im more."
+
+"Well," Rene replied, turning away with a laugh, "if I'd been scalped
+by the Indians, as you have, I don't think there would be any
+particular reason why I should wait for an Indian thief to go and arm
+himself before I accepted him as a target."
+
+Oncle Jazon lifted a hand involuntarily and rubbed his scalpless crown;
+then he chuckled with a grotesque grimace as if the recollection of
+having his head skinned were the funniest thing imaginable.
+
+"When you've killed as many of 'em as Oncle Jazon has," remarked a
+bystander to Rene, "you'll not be so hungry for blood, maybe."
+
+"Especially after ye've took fifty-nine scalps to pay for yer one,"
+added Oncle Jazon, replacing his cap over the hairless area of his
+crown.
+
+The men who had been chasing Long-Hair, presently came straggling back
+with their stories--each had a distinct one--of how the fugitive
+escaped. They were wild looking fellows, most of them somewhat
+intoxicated, all profusely liberal with their stock of picturesque
+profanity. They represented the roughest element of the well-nigh
+lawless post.
+
+"I'm positive that he's wounded," said one. "Jacques and I shot at him
+together, so that our pistols sounded just as if only one had been
+fired--bang! that way--and he leaped sideways for all the world like a
+bird with a broken leg. I thought he'd fall; but ve! he ran faster'n
+ever, and all at once he was gone; just disappeared."
+
+"Well, to-morrow we'll get him," said another. "You and I and Jacques,
+we'll take up his trail, the thief, and follow him till we find him. He
+can't get off so easy."
+
+"I don't know so well about that," said another; "it's Long-Hair, you
+must remember, and Long-Hair is no common buck that just anybody can
+find asleep. You know what Long-Hair is. Nobody's ever got even with
+'im yet. That's so, ain't it? Just ask Oncle Jazon, if you don't
+believe it!"
+
+The next morning Long-Hair was tracked to the edge. He had been
+wounded, but whether seriously or not could only be conjectured. A
+sprinkle of blood, here and there quite a dash of it, reddened the
+grass and clumps of weeds he had run through, and ended close to the
+water into which it looked as if he had plunged with a view to baffling
+pursuit. Indeed pursuit was baffled. No further trace could be found,
+by which to follow the cunning fugitive. Some of the men consoled
+themselves by saying, without believing, that Long-Hair was probably
+lying drowned at the bottom of the river.
+
+"Pas du tout," observed Oncle Jazon, his short pipe askew far over in
+the corner of his mouth, "not a bit of it is that Indian drowned. He's
+jes' as live as a fat cat this minute, and as drunk as the devil. He'll
+get some o' yer scalps yet after he's guzzled all that brandy and slep'
+a week."
+
+It finally transpired that Oncle Jazon was partly right and partly
+wrong. Long-Hair was alive, even as a fat cat, perhaps; but not drunk,
+for in trying to swim with the rotund little dame jeanne under his arm
+he lost hold of it and it went to the bottom of the Wabash, where it
+may be lying at this moment patiently waiting for some one to fish it
+out of its bed deep in the sand and mud, and break the ancient wax from
+its neck!
+
+Rene de Ronville, after the chase of Long-Hair had been given over,
+went to tell Father Beret what had happened, and finding the priest's
+hut empty turned into the path leading to the Roussillon place, which
+was at the head of a narrow street laid out in a direction at right
+angles to the river's course. He passed two or three diminutive cabins,
+all as much alike as bee-hives. Each had its squat veranda and thatched
+or clapboarded roof held in place by weight-poles ranged in roughly
+parallel rows, and each had the face of the wall under its veranda
+neatly daubed with a grayish stucco made of mud and lime. You may see
+such houses today in some remote parts of the creole country of
+Louisiana.
+
+As Rene passed along he spoke with a gay French freedom to the dames
+and lasses who chanced to be visible. His air would be regarded as
+violently brigandish in our day; we might even go so far as to think
+his whole appearance comical. His jaunty cap with a tail that wagged as
+he walked, his short trousers and leggins of buckskin, and his loose
+shirt-like tunic, drawn in at the waist with a broad belt, gave his
+strong figure just the dash of wildness suited to the armament with
+which it was weighted. A heavy gun lay in the hollow of his shoulder
+under which hung an otter-skin bullet-pouch with its clear powder-horn
+and white bone charger. In his belt were two huge flint-lock pistols
+and a long case-knife.
+
+"Bon jour, Ma'm'selle Adrienne," he cheerily called, waving his free
+hand in greeting to a small, dark lass standing on the step of a
+veranda and indolently swinging a broom. "Comment allez-vous auj
+ourd'hui?"
+
+"J'm'porte tres bien, merci, Mo'sieu Rene," was the quick response; "et
+vous?"
+
+"Oh, I'm as lively as a cricket."
+
+"Going a hunting?"
+
+"No, just up here a little way--just on business--up to Mo'sieu
+Roussillon's for a moment."
+
+"Yes," the girl responded in a tone indicative of something very like
+spleen, "yes, undoubtedly, Mo'sieu de Ronville; your business there
+seems quite pressing of late. I have noticed your industrious
+application to that business."
+
+"Ta-ta, little one," he wheedled, lowering his voice; "you mustn't go
+to making bug-bears out of nothing."
+
+"Bug-bears!" she retorted, "you go on about your business and I'll
+attend to mine," and she flirted into the house.
+
+Rene laughed under his breath, standing a moment as if expecting her to
+come out again; but she did not, and he resumed his walk singing
+softly--
+
+"Elle a les joues vermeilles, vermeilles, Ma belle, ma belle petite."
+
+But ten to one he was not thinking of Madamoiselle Adrienne Bourcier.
+His mind, however, must have been absorbingly occupied; for in the
+straight, open way he met Father Beret and did not see him until he
+came near bumping against the old man, who stepped aside with
+astonishing agility and said--
+
+"Dieu vous benisse, mon fils; but what is your great hurry--where can
+you be going in such happy haste?" Rene did not stop to parley with the
+priest. He flung some phrase of pleasant greeting back over his
+shoulder as he trudged on, his heart beginning a tattoo against his
+ribs when the Roussillon place came in sight, and he took hold of his
+mustache to pull it, as some men must do in moments of nervousness and
+bashfulness. If sounds ever have color, the humming in his ears was of
+a rosy hue; if thoughts ever exhale fragrance, his brain overflowed
+with the sweets of violet and heliotrope.
+
+He had in mind what he was going to say when Alice and he should be
+alone together. It was a pretty speech, he thought; indeed a very
+thrilling little speech, by the way it stirred his own nerve-centers as
+he conned it over.
+
+Madame Roussillon met him at the door in not a very good humor.
+
+"Is Mademoiselle Alice here?" he ventured to demand.
+
+"Alice? no, she's not here; she's never here just when I want her most.
+V'la le picbois et la grive--see the woodpecker and the robin--eating
+the cherries, eating every one of them, and that girl running off
+somewhere instead of staying here and picking them," she railed in
+answer to the young man's polite inquiry. "I haven't seen her these
+four hours, neither her nor that rascally hunchback, Jean. They're up
+to some mischief, I'll be bound!"
+
+Madame Roussillon puffed audibly between phrases; but she suddenly
+became very mild when relieved of her tirade.
+
+"Mais entrez," she added in a pleasant tone, "come in and tell me the
+news."
+
+Rene's disappointment rushed into his face, but he managed to laugh it
+aside.
+
+"Father Beret has just been telling me," said Madame Roussillon, "that
+our friend Long-Hair made some trouble last night. How about it?"
+
+Rene told her what he knew and added that Long-Hair would probably
+never be seen again.
+
+"He was shot, no doubt of it," he went on, "and is now being nibbled by
+fish and turtles. We tracked him by his blood to where he jumped into
+the Wabash. He never came out."
+
+Strangely enough it happened that, at the very time of this chat
+between Madame Roussillon and Rene Alice was bandaging Long-Hair's
+wounded leg with strips of her apron. It was under some willows which
+overhung the bank of a narrow and shallow lagoon or slough, which in
+those days extended a mile or two back into the country on the farther
+side of the river. Alice and Jean went over in a pirogue to see if the
+water lilies, haunting a pond there, were yet beginning to bloom. They
+landed at a convenient spot some distance up the little lagoon, made
+the boat fast by dragging its prow high ashore, and were on the point
+of setting out across a neck of wet, grassy land to the pond, when a
+deep grunt, not unlike that of a self-satisfied pig, attracted them to
+the willows, where they discovered Long-Hair, badly wounded, weltering
+in some black mud.
+
+His hiding-place was cunningly chosen, save that the mire troubled him,
+letting him down by slow degrees, and threatening to engulf him bodily;
+and he was now too weak to extricate himself. He lifted his head and
+glared. His face was grimy, his hair matted with mud. Alice, although
+brave enough and quite accustomed to startling experiences, uttered a
+cry when she saw those snaky eyes glistening so savagely amid the
+shadows. But Jean was quick to recognize Long-Hair; he had often seen
+him about town, a figure not to be forgotten.
+
+"They've been hunting him everywhere," he said in a half whisper to
+Alice, clutching the skirt of her dress. "It's Long-Hair, the Indian
+who stole the brandy; I know him."
+
+Alice recoiled a pace or two.
+
+"Let's go back and tell 'em," Jean added, still whispering, "they want
+to kill him; Oncle Jazon said so. Come on!"
+
+He gave her dress a jerk; but she did not move any farther back; she
+was looking at the blood oozing from a wound in the Indian's leg.
+
+"He is shot, he is hurt, Jean, we must help him," she presently said,
+recovering her self-control, yet still pale. "We must get him out of
+that bad place."
+
+Jean caught Alice's merciful spirit with sympathetic readiness, and
+showed immediate willingness to aid her.
+
+It was a difficult thing to do; but there was a will and of course a
+way. They had knives with which they cut willows to make a standing
+place on the mud. While they were doing this they spoke friendly words
+to Long-Hair, who understood French a little, and at last they got hold
+of his arms, tugged, rested, tugged again, and finally managed to help
+him to a dry place, still under the willows, where he could lie more at
+ease. Jean carried water in his cap with which they washed the wound
+and the stolid savage face. Then Alice tore up her cotton apron, in
+which she had hoped to bear home a load of lilies, and with the strips
+bound the wound very neatly. It took a long time, during which the
+Indian remained silent and apparently quite indifferent.
+
+Long-Hair was a man of superior physique, tall, straight, with the
+muscles of a Vulcan; and while he lay stretched on the ground half clad
+and motionless, he would have been a grand model for an heroic figure
+in bronze. Yet from every lineament there came a strange repelling
+influence, like that from a snake. Alice felt almost unbearable disgust
+while doing her merciful task; but she bravely persevered until it was
+finished.
+
+It was now late in the afternoon, and the sun would be setting before
+they could reach home.
+
+"We must hurry back, Jean," Alice said, turning to depart. "It will be
+all we can do to reach the other side in daylight. I'm thinking that
+they'll be out hunting for us too, if we don't move right lively. Come."
+
+She gave the Indian another glance when she had taken but a step. He
+grunted and held up something in his hand--something that shone with a
+dull yellow light. It was a small, oval, gold locket which she had
+always worn in her bosom. She sprang and snatched it from his palm.
+
+"Thank you," she exclaimed, smiling gratefully. "I am so glad you found
+it."
+
+The chain by which the locket had hung was broken, doubtless by some
+movement while dragging Long-Hair out of the mud, and the lid had
+sprung open, exposing a miniature portrait of Alice, painted when she
+was a little child, probably not two years old. It was a sweet baby
+face, archly bright, almost surrounded with a fluff of golden hair. The
+neck and the upper line of the plump shoulders, with a trace of richly
+delicate lace and a string of pearls, gave somehow a suggestion of
+patrician daintiness.
+
+Long-Hair looked keenly into Alice's eyes, when she stooped to take the
+locket from his hand, but said nothing.
+
+She and Jean now hurried away, and, so vigorously did they paddle the
+pirogue, that the sky was yet red in the west when they reached home
+and duly received their expected scolding from Madame Roussillon.
+
+Alice sealed Jean's lips as to their adventure; for she had made up her
+mind to save Long-Hair if possible, and she felt sure that the only way
+to do it would be to trust no one but Father Beret.
+
+It turned out that Long-Hair's wound was neither a broken bone nor a
+cut artery. The flesh of his leg, midway between the hip and the knee,
+was pierced; the bullet had bored a neat hole clean through. Father
+Beret took the case in hand, and with no little surgical skill
+proceeded to set the big Indian upon his feet again. The affair had to
+be cleverly managed. Food, medicines and clothing were surreptitiously
+borne across the river; a bed of grass was kept fresh under Long-Hair's
+back; his wound was regularly dressed; and finally his weapons--a
+tomahawk, a knife, a strong bow and a quiver of arrows--which he had
+hidden on the night of his bold theft, were brought to him.
+
+"Now go and sin no more," said good Father Beret; but he well knew that
+his words were mere puffs of articulate wind in the ear of the grim and
+silent savage, who limped away with an air of stately dignity into the
+wilderness.
+
+A load fell from Alice's mind when Father Beret informed her of
+Long-Hair's recovery and departure. Day and night the dread lest some
+of the men should find out his hiding-place and kill him had depressed
+and worried her. And now, when it was all over, there still hovered
+like an elusive shadow in her consciousness a vague haunting impression
+of the incident's immense significance as an influence in her life. To
+feel that she had saved a man from death was a new sensation of itself;
+but the man and the circumstances were picturesque; they invited
+imagination; they furnished an atmosphere of romance dear to all young
+and healthy natures, and somehow stirred her soul with a strange appeal.
+
+Long-Hair's imperturbable calmness, his stolid, immobile countenance,
+the mysterious reptilian gleam of his shifty black eyes, and the
+soulless expression always lurking in them, kept a fascinating hold on
+the girl's memory. They blended curiously with the impressions left by
+the romances she had read in M. Roussillon's mildewed books.
+
+Long-Hair was not a young man; but it would have been impossible to
+guess near his age. His form and face simply showed long experience and
+immeasurable vigor. Alice remembered with a shuddering sensation the
+look he gave her when she took the locket from his hand. It was of but
+a second's duration, yet it seemed to search every nook of her being
+with its subtle power.
+
+Romancers have made much of their Indian heroes, picturing them as
+models of manly beauty and nobility; but all fiction must be taken with
+liberal pinches of salt. The plain truth is that dark savages of the
+pure blood often do possess the magnetism of perfect physical
+development and unfathomable mental strangeness; but real beauty they
+never have. Their innate repulsiveness is so great that, like the
+snake's charm, it may fascinate; yet an indescribable, haunting disgust
+goes with it. And, after all, if Alice had been asked to tell just how
+she felt toward the Indian she had labored so hard to save, she would
+promptly have said:
+
+"I loathe him as I do a toad!"
+
+Nor would Father Beret, put to the same test, have made a substantially
+different confession. His work, to do which his life went as fuel to
+fire, was training the souls of Indians for the reception of divine
+grace; but experience had not changed his first impression of savage
+character. When he traveled in the wilderness he carried the Word and
+the Cross; but he was also armed with a gun and two good pistols, not
+to mention a dangerous knife. The rumor prevailed that Father Beret
+could drive a nail at sixty yards with his rifle, and at twenty snuff a
+candle with either one of his pistols.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FIRST MAYOR OF VINCENNES
+
+
+Governor Abbott probably never so much as heard of the dame jeanne of
+French brandy sent to him by his creole friend in New Orleans. He had
+been gone from Vincennes several months when the batteau arrived,
+having been recalled to Detroit by the British authorities; and he
+never returned. Meantime the little post with its quaint cabins and its
+dilapidated block-house, called Fort Sackville, lay sunning drowsily by
+the river in a blissful state of helplessness from the military point
+of view. There was no garrison; the two or three pieces of artillery,
+abandoned and exposed, gathered rust and cobwebs, while the pickets of
+the stockade, decaying and loosened in the ground by winter freezes and
+summer rains, leaned in all directions, a picture of decay and
+inefficiency.
+
+The inhabitants of the town, numbering about six hundred, lived very
+much as pleased them, without any regular municipal government, each
+family its own tribe, each man a law unto himself; yet for mutual
+protection, they all kept in touch and had certain common rights which
+were religiously respected and defended faithfully. A large pasturing
+ground was fenced in where the goats and little black cows of the
+villagers browsed as one herd, while the patches of wheat, corn and
+vegetables were not inclosed at all. A few of the thriftier and more
+important citizens, however, had separate estates of some magnitude,
+surrounding their residences, kept up with care and, if the time and
+place be taken into account, with considerable show of taste.
+
+Monsieur Gaspard Roussillon was looked upon as the aristocrat par
+excellence of Vincennes, notwithstanding the fact that his name bore no
+suggestion of noble or titled ancestry. He was rich and in a measure
+educated; moreover the successful man's patent of leadership, a
+commanding figure and a suave manner, came always to his assistance
+when a crisis presented itself. He traded shrewdly, much to his own
+profit, but invariably with the excellent result that the man, white or
+Indian, with whom he did business felt himself especially favored in
+the transaction. By the exercise of firmness, prudence, vast
+assumption, florid eloquence and a kindly liberality he had greatly
+endeared himself to the people; so that in the absence of a military
+commander he came naturally to be regarded as the chief of the town,
+Mo'sieu' le maire.
+
+He returned from his extended trading expedition about the middle of
+July, bringing, as was his invariable rule, a gift for Alice. This time
+it was a small, thin disc of white flint, with a hole in the center
+through which a beaded cord of sinew was looped. The edge of the disc
+was beautifully notched and the whole surface polished so that it shone
+like glass, while the beads, made of very small segments of porcupine
+quills, were variously dyed, making a curiously gaudy show of bright
+colors.
+
+"There now, ma cherie, is something worth fifty times its weight in
+gold," said M. Roussillon when he presented the necklace to his foster
+daughter with pardonable self-satisfaction. "It is a sacred
+charm-string given me by an old heathen who would sell his soul for a
+pint of cheap rum. He solemnly informed me that whoever wore it could
+not by any possibility be killed by an enemy."
+
+Alice kissed M. Roussillon.
+
+"It's so curious and beautiful," she said, holding it up and drawing
+the variegated string through her fingers. Then, with her mischievous
+laugh, she added; "and I'm glad it is so powerful against one's enemy;
+I'll wear it whenever I go where Adrienne Bourcier is, see if I don't!"
+
+"Is she your enemy? What's up between you and la petite Adrienne, eh?"
+M. Roussillon lightly demanded. "You were always the best of good
+friends, I thought. What's happened?"
+
+"Oh, we are good friends," said Alice, quickly, "very good friends,
+indeed; I was but chaffing."
+
+"Good friends, but enemies; that's how it is with women. Who's the
+young man that's caused the coolness? I could guess, maybe!" He laughed
+and winked knowingly. "May I be so bold as to name him at a venture?"
+
+"Yes, if you'll be sure to mention Monsieur Rene de Ronville," she
+gayly answered. "Who but he could work Adrienne up into a perfect green
+mist of jealousy?"
+
+"He would need an accomplice, I should imagine; a young lady of some
+beauty and a good deal of heartlessness."
+
+"Like whom, for example?" and she tossed her bright head. "Not me, I am
+sure."
+
+"Poh! like every pretty maiden in the whole world, ma petite coquette;
+they're all alike as peas, cruel as blue jays and as sweet as
+apple-blossoms." He stroked her hair clumsily with his large hand, as a
+heavy and roughly fond man is apt to do, adding in an almost serious
+tone:
+
+"But my little girl is better than most of them, not a foolish
+mischief-maker, I hope."
+
+Alice was putting her head through the string of beads and letting the
+translucent white disc fall into her bosom.
+
+"It's time to change the subject," she said; "tell me what you have
+seen while away. I wish I could go far off and see things. Have you
+been to Detroit, Quebec, Montreal?"
+
+"Yes, I've been to all, a long, hard journey, but reasonably
+profitable. You shall have a goodly dot when you get married, my child."
+
+"And did you attend any parties and balls?" she inquired quickly,
+ignoring his concluding remark. "Tell me about them. How do the fine
+ladies dress, and do they wear their hair high with great big combs? Do
+they have long skirts and--"
+
+"Hold up, you double-tongued chatterbox!" he interrupted; "I can't
+answer forty questions at once. Yes, I danced till my legs ached with
+women old and girls young; but how could I remember how they were
+dressed and what their style of coiffure was? I know that silk rustled
+and there was a perfume of eau de Cologne and mignonette and my heart
+expanded and blazed while I whirled like a top with a sweet lady in my
+arms."
+
+"Yes, you must have cut a ravishing figure!" interpolated Madame
+Roussillon with emphatic disapproval, her eyes snapping. "A bull in a
+lace shop. How delighted the ladies must have been!"
+
+"Never saw such blushing faces and burning glances--such fluttering
+breasts, such--"
+
+"Big braggart," Madame Roussillon broke in contemptuously, "it's a
+piastre to a sou that you stood gawping in through a window while
+gentlemen and ladies did the dancing. I can imagine how you looked--I
+can!" and with this she took her prodigious bulk at a waddling gait out
+of the room. "I remember how you danced even when you were not clumsy
+as a pig on ice!" she shrieked back over her shoulder.
+
+"Parbleu! true enough, my dear," he called after her, "I should think
+you could--you mind how we used trip it together. You were the
+prettiest dancer them all, and the young fellows all went to the swords
+about you!"
+
+"But tell me more," Alice insisted; "I want to know about what you saw
+in the great towns--in the fine houses--how the ladies looked, how they
+acted--what they said--the dresses they wore--how--"
+
+"Ciel! you will split my ears, child; can't you fill my pipe and bring
+it to me with a coal on it? Then I'll try to tell you what I can," he
+cried, assuming a humorously resigned air. "Perhaps if I smoke I can
+remember everything."
+
+Alice gladly ran to do what he asked. Meantime Jean was out on the
+gallery blowing a flute that M. Roussillon had brought him from Quebec.
+
+The pipe well filled and lighted apparently did have the effect to
+steady and encourage M. Roussillon's memory; or if not his memory, then
+his imagination, which was of that fervid and liberal sort common to
+natives of the Midi, and which has been exquisitely depicted by the
+late Alphonse Daudet in Tartarin and Bompard. He leaned far back in a
+strong chair, with his massive legs stretched at full length, and gazed
+at the roof-poles while he talked.
+
+He sympathized fully, in his crude way, with Alice's lively curiosity,
+and his affection for her made him anxious to appease her longing after
+news from the great outside world. If the sheer truth must come out,
+however, he knew precious little about that world, especially the
+polite part of it in which thrived those femininities so dear to the
+heart of an isolated and imaginative girl. Still, as he, too, lived in
+Arcadia, there was no great effort involved when he undertook to blow a
+dreamer's flute.
+
+In the first place he had not been in Quebec or Montreal during his
+absence from home. Most of the time he had spent disposing of pelts and
+furs at Detroit and in extending his trading relations with other
+posts; but what mattered a trifling want of facts when his meridional
+fancy once began to warm up? A smattering of social knowledge gained at
+first hand in his youthful days in France while he was a student whose
+parents fondly expected him to conquer the world, came to his aid, and
+besides he had saturated himself all his life with poetry and romance.
+Scudery, Scarron, Prevost, Madame La Fayette and Calprenede were the
+chief sources of his information touching the life and manners, morals
+and gayeties of people who, as he supposed, stirred the surface of that
+resplendent and far-off ocean called society. Nothing suited him better
+than to smoke a pipe and talk about what he had seen and done; and the
+less he had really seen and done the more he had to tell.
+
+His broad, almost over-virile, kindly and contented face beamed with
+the warmth of wholly imaginary recollections while he recounted with
+minute circumstantiality to the delighted Alice his gallant adventures
+in the crowded and brilliant ball-rooms of the French-Canadian towns.
+The rolling burr of his bass voice, deep and resonant, gave force to
+the improvised descriptions.
+
+Madame Roussillon heard the heavy booming and presently came softly
+back into the door from the kitchen to listen. She leaned against the
+facing in an attitude of ponderous attention, a hand, on her bulging
+hip. She could not suppress her unbounded admiration of her liege
+lord's manly physique, and jealous to fierceness as she was of his
+experiences so eloquently and picturesquely related, her woman's nature
+took fire with enjoyment of the scenes described.
+
+This is the mission of the poet and the romancer--to sponge out of
+existence, for a time, the stiff, refractory, and unlovely realities
+and give in their place a scene of ideal mobility and charm. The two
+women reveled in Gaspard Roussillon's revelations. They saw the
+brilliant companies, the luxurious surroundings, heard the rustle of
+brocade and the fine flutter of laces, the hum of sweet voices,
+breathed in the wafts of costly perfumeries, looked on while the
+dancers whirled and flickered in the confusion of lights; and over all
+and through all poured and vibrated such ravishing music as only the
+southern imagination could have conjured up out of nothing.
+
+Alice was absolutely charmed. She sat on a low wooden stool and gazed
+into Gaspard Roussillon's face with dilating eyes in which burned that
+rich and radiant something we call a passionate soul. She drank in his
+flamboyant stream of words with a thirst which nothing but experience
+could ever quench. He felt her silent applause and the admiring
+involuntary absorption that possessed his wife; the consciousness of
+his elementary magnetism augmented the flow of his fine descriptions,
+and he went on and on, until the arrival of Father Beret put an end to
+it all.
+
+The priest, hearing of M. Roussillon's return, had come to inquire
+about some friends living at Detroit. He took luncheon with the family,
+enjoying the downright refreshing collation of broiled birds, onions,
+meal-cakes and claret, ending with a dish of blackberries and cream.
+
+M. Roussillon seized the first opportunity to resume his successful
+romancing, and presently in the midst of the meal began to tell Father
+Beret about what he had seen in Quebec.
+
+"By the way," he said, with expansive casualness in his voice, "I
+called upon your old-time friend and co-adjutor, Father Sebastien,
+while up there. A noble old man. He sent you a thousand good messages.
+Was mightily delighted when I told him how happy and hale you have
+always been here. Ah, you should have seen his dear old eyes full of
+loving tears. He would walk a hundred miles to see you, he said, but
+never expected to in this world. Blessings, blessings upon dear Father
+Beret, was what he murmured in my ear when we were parting. He says
+that he will never leave Quebec until he goes to his home above--ah!"
+
+The way in which M. Roussillon closed his little speech, his large eyes
+upturned, his huge hands clasped in front of him, was very effective.
+
+"I am under many obligations, my son," said Father Beret, "for what you
+tell me. It was good of you to remember my dear old friend and go to
+him for his loving messages to me. I am very, very thankful. Help me to
+another drop of wine, please."
+
+Now the extraordinary feature of the situation was that Father Beret
+had known positively for nearly five years that Father Sebastien was
+dead and buried.
+
+"Ah, yes," M. Roussillon continued, pouring the claret with one hand
+and making a pious gesture with the other; "the dear old man loves you
+and prays for you; his voice quavers whenever he speaks of you."
+
+"Doubtless he made his old joke to you about the birth-mark on my
+shoulder," said Father Beret after a moment of apparently thoughtful
+silence. "He may have said something about it in a playful way, eh?"
+
+"True, true, why yes, he surely mentioned the same," assented M.
+Roussillon, his face assuming an expression of confused memory; "it was
+something sly and humorous, I mind; but it just escapes my
+recollection. A right jolly old boy is Father Sebastien; indeed very
+amusing at times."
+
+"At times, yes," said Father Beret, who had no birth-mark on his
+shoulder, and had never had one there, or on any other part of his
+person.
+
+"How strange!" Alice remarked, "I, too, have a mark on my shoulder--a
+pink spot, just like a small, five-petaled flower. We must be of kin to
+each other, Father Beret."
+
+The priest laughed.
+
+"If our marks are alike, that would be some evidence of kinship," he
+said.
+
+"But what shape is yours, Father?"
+
+"I've never seen it," he responded.
+
+"Never seen it! Why?"
+
+"Well, it's absolutely invisible," and he chuckled heartily, meantime
+glancing shrewdly at M. Roussillon out of the tail of his eye.
+
+"It's on the back part of his shoulder," quickly spoke up M.
+Roussillon, "and you know priests never use looking-glasses. The mark
+is quite invisible therefore, so far as Father Beret is concerned!"
+
+"You never told me of your birth-mark before, my daughter," said Father
+Beret, turning to Alice with sudden interest. "It may some day be good
+fortune to you."
+
+"Why so, Father?"
+
+"If your family name is really Tarleton, as you suppose from the
+inscription on your locket, the birth-mark, being of such singular
+shape, would probably identify you. It is said that these marks run
+regularly in families. With the miniature and the distinguishing
+birth-mark you have enough to make a strong case should you once find
+the right Tarleton family."
+
+"You talk as they write in novels," said Alice. "I've read about just
+such things in them. Wouldn't it be grand if I should turn out to be
+some great personage in disguise!"
+
+The mention of novels reminded Father Beret of that terrible book,
+Manon Lescaut, which he last saw in Alice's possession, and he could
+not refrain from mentioning it in a voice that shuddered.
+
+"Rest easy, Father Beret," said Alice; "that is one novel I have found
+wholly distasteful to me. I tried to read it, but could not do it, I
+flung it aside in utter disgust. You and mother Roussillon are welcome
+to hide it deep as a well, for all I care. I don't enjoy reading about
+low, vile people and hopeless unfortunates; I like sweet and lovely
+heroines and strong, high-souled, brave heroes."
+
+"Read about the blessed saints, then, my daughter; you will find in
+them the true heroes and heroines of this world," said Father Beret.
+
+M. Roussillon changed the subject, for he always somehow dreaded to
+have the good priest fall into the strain of argument he was about to
+begin. A stray sheep, no matter how refractory, feels a touch of
+longing when it hears the shepherd's voice. M. Roussillon was a
+Catholic, but a straying one, who avoided the confessional and often
+forgot mass. Still, with all his reckless independence, and with all
+his outward show of large and breezy self-sufficiency, he was not
+altogether free from the hold that the church had laid upon him in
+childhood and youth. Moreover, he was fond of Father Beret and had done
+a great deal for the little church of St. Xavier and the mission it
+represented; but he distinctly desired to be let alone while he pursued
+his own course; and he had promised the dying woman who gave Alice to
+him that the child should be left as she was, a Protestant, without
+undue influence to change her from the faith of her parents. This
+promise he had kept with stubborn persistence and he meant to keep it
+as long as he lived. Perhaps the very fact that his innermost
+conscience smote him with vague yet telling blows at times for this
+departure from the strict religion of his fathers, may have intensified
+his resistance of the influence constantly exerted upon Alice by Father
+Beret and Madame Roussillon, to bring her gently but surely to the
+church. Perverseness is a force to be reckoned with in all original
+characters.
+
+A few weeks had passed after M. Roussillon's return, when that
+big-hearted man took it into his head to celebrate his successful
+trading ventures with a moonlight dance given without reserve to all
+the inhabitants of Vincennes. It was certainly a democratic function
+that he contemplated, and motley to a most picturesque extent.
+
+Rene de Ronville called upon Alice a day or two previous to the
+occasion and duly engaged her as his partenaire; but she insisted upon
+having the engagement guarded in her behalf by a condition so obviously
+fanciful that he accepted it without argument.
+
+"If my wandering knight should arrive during the dance, you promise to
+stand aside and give place to him," she stipulated. "You promise that?
+You see I'm expecting him all the time. I dreamed last night that he
+came on a great bay horse and, stooping, whirled me up behind the
+saddle, and away we went!"
+
+There was a childish, half bantering air in her look; but her voice
+sounded earnest and serious, notwithstanding its delicious timbre of
+suppressed playfulness.
+
+"You promise me?" she insisted.
+
+"Oh, I promise to slink away into a corner and chew my thumb, the
+moment he comes," Rene eagerly assented. "Of course I'm taking a great
+risk, I know; for lords and barons and knights are very apt to appear
+Suddenly in a place like this."
+
+"You may banter and make light if you want to," she said, pouting
+admirably. "I don't care. All the same the laugh will jump to the other
+corner of your mouth, see if it doesn't. They say that what a person
+dreams about and wishes for and waits for and believes in, will come
+true sooner or later."
+
+"If that's so," said Rene, "you and I will get married; for I've
+dreamed it every night of the year, wished for it, waited for it and
+believed in it, and--"
+
+It was a madly sudden rush. He made it on an impulse quite
+irresistible, as hypnotized persons are said to do in response to the
+suggestion of the hypnotist, and his heart was choking his throat
+before he could end his speech. Alice interrupted him with a hearty
+burst of laughter.
+
+"A very pretty twist you give to my words, I must declare," she said;
+"but not new by any means. Little Adrienne Bourcier could tell you
+that. She says that you have vowed to her over and over that you dream
+about her, and wish for her, and wait for her, precisely as you have
+just said to me."
+
+Rene's brown face flushed to the temples, partly with anger, partly
+with the shock of mingled surprise and fear. He was guilty, and the
+guilt showed in his eyes and paralyzed his tongue, so that he sat there
+before Alice with his under jaw sagging ludicrously.
+
+"Don't you rather think, Monsieur Rene de Ronville," she presently
+added in a calmly advisory tone, "that you had better quit trying to
+say such foolish things to me, and just be my very good friend? If you
+don't, I do, which comes to the same thing. What's more, I won't be
+your partenaire at the dance unless you promise me on your word of
+honor that you will dance two dances with Adrienne to every one that
+you have with me. Do you promise?"
+
+He dared not oppose her outwardly, although in his heart resistance
+amounted to furious revolt and riot.
+
+"I promise anything you ask me to," he said resignedly, almost
+sullenly; "anything for you."
+
+"Well, I ask nothing whatever on my own account," Alice quickly
+replied; "but I do tell you firmly that you shall not maltreat little
+Adrienne Bourcier and remain a friend of mine. She loves you, Rene de
+Ronville, and you have told her that you love her. If you are a man
+worthy of respect you will not desert her. Don't you think I am right?"
+
+Like a singed and crippled moth vainly trying to rise once again to the
+alluring yet deadly flame, Rene de Ronville essayed to break out of his
+embarrassment and resume equal footing with the girl so suddenly become
+his commanding superior; but the effort disclosed to him as well as to
+her that he had fallen to rise no more. In his abject defeat he
+accepted the terms dictated by Alice and was glad when she adroitly
+changed her manner and tone in going on to discuss the approaching
+dance.
+
+"Now let me make one request of you," he demanded after a while. "It's
+a small favor; may I ask it?"
+
+"Yes, but I don't grant it in advance."
+
+"I want you to wear, for my sake, the buff gown which they say was your
+grandmother's."
+
+"No, I won't wear it."
+
+"But why, Alice?"
+
+"None of the other girls have anything like such a dress; it would not
+be right for me to put it on and make them all feel that I had taken
+the advantage of them, just because I could; that's why."
+
+"But then none of them is beautiful and educated like you," he said;
+"you'll outshine them anyway."
+
+"Save your compliments for poor pretty little Adrienne," she firmly
+responded, "I positively do not wish to hear them. I have agreed to be
+your partenaire at this dance of Papa Roussillon's, but it is
+understood between us that Adrienne is your sweet-heart. I am not, and
+I'm not going to be, either. So for your sake and Adrienne's, as well
+as out of consideration for the rest of the girls who have no fine
+dresses, I am not going to wear the buff brocade gown that belonged to
+Papa Roussillon's mother long ago. I shall dress just as the rest do."
+
+It is safe to say that Rene de Ronville went home with a troublesome
+bee in his bonnet. He was not a bad-hearted fellow. Many a right good
+young man, before him and since, has loved an Adrienne and been dazzled
+by an Alice. A violet is sweet, but a rose is the garden's queen. The
+poor youthful frontiersman ought to have been stronger; but he was not,
+and what have we to say?
+
+As for Alice, since having a confidential talk with Adrienne Bourcier
+recently, she had come to realize what M. Roussillon meant when he
+said; "But my little girl is better than most of them, not a foolish
+mischief-maker, I hope." She saw through the situation with a quick
+understanding of what Adrienne might suffer should Rene prove
+permanently fickle. The thought of it aroused all her natural honesty
+and serious nobleness of character, which lay deep under the almost
+hoydenish levity usually observable in her manner. Crude as her sense
+of life's larger significance was, and meager as had been her
+experience in the things which count for most in the sum of a young
+girl's existence under fair circumstances, she grasped intuitively the
+gist of it all.
+
+The dance did not come off; it had to be postponed indefinitely on
+account of a grave change in the political relations of the little
+post. A day or two before the time set for that function a rumor ran
+through the town that something of importance was about to happen.
+Father Gibault, at the head of a small party, had arrived from
+Kaskaskia, far away on the Mississippi, with the news that France and
+the American Colonies had made common cause against the English in the
+great war of which the people of Vincennes neither knew the cause nor
+cared a straw about the outcome.
+
+It was Oncle Jazon who came to the Roussillon place to tell M.
+Roussillon that he was wanted at the river house. Alice met him at the
+door.
+
+"Come in, Oncle Jazon," she cheerily said, "you are getting to be a
+stranger at our house lately. Come in; what news do you bring? Take off
+your cap and rest your hair, Oncle Jazon."
+
+The scalpless old fighter chuckled raucously and bowed to the best of
+his ability. He not only took off his queer cap, but looked into it
+with a startled gaze, as if he expected something infinitely dangerous
+to jump out and seize his nose.
+
+"A thousand thanks, Ma'm'selle," he presently said, "will ye please
+tell Mo'sieu' Roussillon that I would wish to see 'im?"
+
+"Yes, Oncle Jazon; but first be seated, and let me offer you just a
+drop of eau de vie; some that Papa Roussillon brought back with him
+from Quebec. He says it's old and fine."
+
+She poured him a full glass, then setting the bottle on a little stand,
+went to find M. Roussillon. While she was absent Oncle Jazon improved
+his opportunity to the fullest extent. At least three additional
+glasses of the brandy went the way of the first. He grinned atrociously
+and smacked his corrugated lips; but when Gaspard Roussillon came in,
+the old man was sitting at some distance from the bottle and glass
+gazing indifferently out across the veranda. He told his story curtly.
+Father Gibault, he said, had sent him to ask M. Roussillon to come to
+the river house, as he had news of great importance to communicate.
+
+"Ah, well, Oncle Jazon, we'll have a nip of brandy together before we
+go," said the host.
+
+"Why, yes, jes' one agin' the broilin' weather," assented Oncle Jazon;
+"I don't mind jes' one."
+
+"A very rich friend of mine in Quebec gave me this brandy, Oncle
+Jazon," said M. Roussillon, pouring the liquor with a grand flourish;
+"and I thought of you as soon as I got it. Now, says I to myself, if
+any man knows good brandy when he tastes it, it's Oncle Jazon, and I'll
+give him a good chance at this bottle just the first of all my friends."
+
+"It surely is delicious," said Oncle Jazon, "very delicious." He spoke
+French with a curious accent, having spent long years with
+English-speaking frontiersmen in the Carolinas and Kentucky, so that
+their lingo had become his own.
+
+As they walked side by side down the way to the river house they looked
+like typical extremes of rough, sun-burned and weather-tanned manhood;
+Oncle Jazon a wizened, diminutive scrap, wrinkled and odd in every
+respect; Gaspard Roussillon towering six feet two, wide shouldered,
+massive, lumbering, muscular, a giant with long curling hair and a
+superb beard. They did not know that they were going down to help
+dedicate the great Northwest to freedom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+FATHER GIBAULT
+
+
+Great movements in the affairs of men are like tides of the seas which
+reach and affect the remotest and quietest nooks and inlets, imparting
+a thrill and a swell of the general motion. Father Gibault brought the
+wave of the American Revolution to Vincennes. He was a simple
+missionary; but he was, besides, a man of great worldly knowledge and
+personal force. Colonel George Rogers Clark made Father Gibault's
+acquaintance at Kaskaskia, when the fort and its garrison surrendered
+to his command, and, quickly discerning the fine qualities of the
+priest's character, sent him to the post on the Wabash to win over its
+people to the cause of freedom and independence. Nor was the task
+assumed a hard one, as Father Gibault probably well knew before he
+undertook it.
+
+A few of the leading men of Vincennes, presided over by Gaspard
+Roussillon, held a consultation at the river house, and it was agreed
+that a mass meeting should be called bringing all of the inhabitants
+together in the church for the purpose of considering the course to be
+taken under the circumstances made known by Father Gibault. Oncle Jazon
+constituted himself an executive committee of one to stir up a noise
+for the occasion.
+
+It was a great day for Vincennes. The volatile temperament of the
+French frontiersmen bubbled over with enthusiasm at the first hint of
+something new, and revolutionary in which they might be expected to
+take part. Without knowing in the least what it was that Father Gibault
+and Oncle Jazon wanted of them, they were all in favor of it at a
+venture.
+
+Rene de Ronville, being an active and intelligent young man, was sent
+about through the town to let everybody know of the meeting. In passing
+he stepped into the cabin of Father Beret, who was sitting on the loose
+puncheon floor, with his back turned toward the entrance and so
+absorbed in trying to put together a great number of small paper
+fragments that he did not hear or look up.
+
+"Are you not going to the meeting, Father?" Rene bluntly demanded. In
+the hurry that was on him he did not remember to be formally polite, as
+was his habit.
+
+The old priest looked up with a startled face. At the same time he
+swept the fragments of paper together and clutched them hard in his
+right hand. "Yes, yes, my son--yes I am going, but the time has not yet
+come for it, has it?" he stammered. "Is it late?"
+
+He sprang to his feet and appeared confused, as if caught in doing
+something very improper.
+
+Rene wondered at this unusual behavior, but merely said:
+
+"I beg pardon, Father Beret, I did not mean to disturb you," and went
+his way.
+
+Father Beret stood for some minutes as if dazed, then squeezed the
+paper fragments into a tight ball, just as they were when he took them
+from under the floor some time before Rene came in, and put it in his
+pocket. A little later he was kneeling, as we have seen him once
+before, in silent yet fervent prayer, his clasped hands lifted toward
+the crucifix on the wall.
+
+"Jesus, give me strength to hold on and do my work," he murmured
+beseechingly, "and oh, free thy poor servant from bitter temptation."
+
+Father Gibault had come prepared to use his eloquence upon the
+excitable Creoles, and with considerable cunning he addressed a motley
+audience at the church, telling them that an American force had taken
+Kaskaskia and would henceforth hold it; that France had joined hands
+with the Americans against the British, and that it was the duty of all
+Frenchmen to help uphold the cause of freedom and independence.
+
+"I come," said he, "directly from Colonel George Rogers Clark, a noble
+and brave officer of the American army, who told me the news that I
+have brought to you. He sent me here to say to you that if you will
+give allegiance to his government you shall be protected against all
+enemies and have the full freedom of citizens. I think you should do
+this without a moment's hesitation, as I and my people at Kaskaskia
+have already done. But perhaps you would like to have a word from your
+distinguished fellow-citizen, Monsieur Gaspard Roussillon. Speak to
+your friends, my son, they will be glad to take counsel of your wisdom."
+
+There was a stir and a craning of necks. M. Roussillon presently
+appeared near the little chancel, his great form towering majestically.
+He bowed and waved his hand with the air of one who accepts distinction
+as a matter of course; then he took his big silver watch and looked at
+it. He was the only man in Vincennes who owned a watch, and so the
+incident was impressive. Father Gibault looked pleased, and already a
+murmur of applause went through the audience. M. Roussillon stroked the
+bulging crystal of the time-piece with a circular motion of his thumb
+and bowed again, clearing his throat resonantly, his face growing
+purplish above his beard.
+
+"Good friends," he said, "what France does all high-class Frenchmen
+applaud." He paused for a shout of approbation, and was not
+disappointed. "The other name for France is glory," he added, "and all
+true Frenchmen love both names. I am a true Frenchman!" and he struck
+his breast a resounding blow with the hand that still held the watch. A
+huge horn button on his buckskin jerkin came in contact with the
+crystal, and there was a smash, followed by a scattered tinkling of
+glass fragments.
+
+All Vincennes stood breathless, contemplating the irreparable accident.
+M. Roussillon had lost the effect of a great period in his speech, but
+he was quick. Lifting the watch to his ear, he listened a moment with
+superb dignity, then slowly elevating his head and spreading his free
+hand over his heart he said:
+
+"The faithful time-piece still tells off the seconds, and the loyal
+heart of its owner still throbs with patriotism."
+
+Oncle Jazon, who stood in front of the speaker, swung his shapeless cap
+as high as he could and yelled like a savage. Then the crowd went wild
+for a time.
+
+"Vive la France! A bas l' Angleterre!" Everybody shouted at the top of
+his voice.
+
+"What France does we all do," continued M. Roussillon, when the noise
+subsided. "France has clasped hands with George Washington and his
+brave compatriots; so do we."
+
+"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!" shrieked Oncle Jazon in a piercing treble,
+tiptoeing and shaking his cap recklessly under M. Roussillon's nose.
+
+The orator winced and jerked his head back, but nobody saw it, save
+perhaps Father Gibault, who laughed heartily.
+
+Great sayings come suddenly, unannounced and unexpected. They have the
+mysterious force of prophetic accident combined with happy economy of
+phrasing. The southern blood in M. Roussillon's veins was effervescing
+upon his brain; his tongue had caught the fine freedom and abandon of
+inspired oratory. He towered and glowed; words fell melodiously from
+his lips; his gestures were compelling, his visage magnetic. In
+conclusion he said:
+
+"Frenchmen, America is the garden-spot of the world and will one day
+rule it, as did Rome of old. Where freedom makes her home, there is the
+centre of power!"
+
+It was in a little log church on the verge of a hummock overlooking a
+marshy wild meadow. Westward for two thousand miles stretched the
+unbroken prairies, woods, mountains, deserts reaching to the Pacific;
+southward for a thousand miles rolled the green billows of the
+wilderness to the warm Gulf shore; northward to the pole and eastward
+to the thin fringe of settlements beyond the mountains, all was
+houseless solitude.
+
+If the reader should go to Vincennes to-day and walk southward along
+Second Street to its intersection with Church Street, the spot then
+under foot would be probably very near where M. Roussillon stood while
+uttering his great sentence. Mind you, the present writer does not
+pretend to know the exact site of old Saint Xavier church. If it could
+be fixed beyond doubt the spot should have an imperishable monument of
+Indiana stone.
+
+When M, Roussillon ceased speaking the audience again exhausted its
+vocal resources; and then Father Gibault called upon each man to come
+forward and solemnly pledge his loyalty to the American cause. Not one
+of them hesitated.
+
+Meantime a woman was doing her part in the transformation of Post
+Vincennes from a French-English picket to a full-fledged American fort
+and town. Madame Godere, finding out what was about to happen, fell to
+work making a flag in imitation of that under which George Washington
+was fighting. Alice chanced to be in the Godere home at the time and
+joined enthusiastically in the sewing. It was an exciting task. Their
+fingers trembled while they worked, and the thread, heavily coated with
+beeswax, squeaked as they drew it through the cloth.
+
+"We shall not be in time," said Madame Godere; "I know we shall not.
+Everything hinders me. My thread breaks or gets tangled and my needle's
+so rusty I can hardly stick it through the cloth. O dear!"
+
+Alice encouraged her with both words and work, and they had almost
+finished when Rene came with a staff which he had brought from the fort.
+
+"Mon dieu, but we have had a great meeting!" he cried. He was
+perspiring with excitement and fast walking; leaning on the staff he
+mopped his face with a blue handkerchief.
+
+"We heard much shouting and noise," said Madame Godere, "M.
+Roussillon's voice rose loud above the rest. He roared like a lion."
+
+"Ah, he was speaking to us; he was very eloquent," Rene replied. "But
+now they are waiting at the fort for the new flag. I have come for it."
+
+"It is ready," said Madame Godere.
+
+With flying fingers Alice sewed it to the staff.
+
+"Voici!" she cried, "vive la republique Americaine!" She lifted the
+staff and let the flag droop over her from head to foot.
+
+"Give it to me," said Rene, holding forth a hand for it, "and I'll run
+to the fort with it."
+
+"No," said Alice, her face suddenly lighting up with resolve. "No, I am
+going to take it myself," and without a moment's delay off she went.
+
+Rene was so caught by surprise that he stood gazing after her until she
+passed behind a house, where the way turned, the shining flag rippling
+around her, and her moccasins twinkling as she ran.
+
+At the blockhouse, awaiting the moment when the symbol of freedom
+should rise like a star over old Vincennes the crowd had picturesquely
+broken into scattered groups. Alice entered through a rent in the
+stockade, as that happened to be a shorter route than through the gate,
+and appeared suddenly almost in their midst.
+
+It was a happy surprise, a pretty and catching spectacular apparition
+of a sort to be thoroughly appreciated by the lively French fancy of
+the audience. The caught the girl's spirit, or it caught them, and they
+made haste to be noisy.
+
+"V'la! V'la! l'p'tite Alice et la bannlere de Zhorzh Vasinton! (Look,
+look, little Alice and George Washington's flag!)" shouted Oncle Jazon.
+He put his wiry little legs through a sort of pas de zephyr and winked
+at himself with concentrated approval.
+
+All the men danced around and yelled till they were hoarse.
+
+By this time Rene had reached Alice's side; but she did not see him;
+she ran into the blockhouse and climbed up a rude ladder-way; then she
+appeared on the roof, still accompanied by Rene, and planted the staff
+in a crack of the slabs, where it stood bravely up, the colors floating
+free.
+
+She looked down and saw M. Roussillon, Father Gibault and Father Beret
+grouped in the centre of the area. They were waving their hands aloft
+at her, while a bedlam of voices sent up applause which went through
+her blood like strong wine. She smiled radiantly, and a sweet flush
+glowed in her cheeks.
+
+No one of all that wild crowd could ever forget the picture sketched so
+boldly at that moment when, after planting the staff, Alice stepped
+back a space and stood strong and beautiful against the soft blue sky.
+She glanced down first, then looked up, her arms folded across her
+bosom. It was a pose as unconsciously taken as that of a bird, and the
+grace of it went straight to the hearts of those below.
+
+She turned about to descend, and for the first time saw that Rene had
+followed her. His face was beaming.
+
+"What a girl you are!" he exclaimed, in a tone of exultant admiration.
+"Never was there another like you!"
+
+Alice walked quickly past him without speaking; for down in the space
+where some women were huddled aside from the crowd, looking on, she had
+seen little Adrienne Bourcier. She made haste to descend. Now that her
+impulsively chosen enterprise was completed her boldness deserted her
+and she slipped out through a dilapidated postern opposite the crowd.
+On her right was the river, while southward before her lay a great flat
+plain, beyond which rose some hillocks covered with forest. The sun
+blazed between masses of slowly drifting clouds that trailed creeping
+fantastic shadows across the marshy waste.
+
+Alice walked along under cover of the slight landswell which then, more
+plainly marked than it is now, formed the contour line of hummock upon
+which the fort and village stood. A watery swale grown full of tall
+aquatic weeds meandered parallel with the bluff, so to call it, and
+there was a soft melancholy whispering of wind among the long blades
+and stems. She passed the church and Father Beret's hut and continued
+for some distance in the direction of that pretty knoll upon which the
+cemetery is at present so tastefully kept. She felt shy now, as if to
+run away and hide would be a great relief. Indeed, so relaxed were her
+nerves that a slight movement in the grass and cat-tail flags near by
+startled her painfully, making her jump like a fawn.
+
+"Little friend not be 'fraid," said a guttural voice in broken French.
+"Little friend not make noise."
+
+At a glance she recognized Long-Hair, the Indian, rising out of the
+matted marsh growth. It was a hideous vision of embodied cunning,
+soullessness and murderous cruelty.
+
+"Not tell white man you see me?" he grunted interrogatively, stepping
+close to her. He looked so wicked that she recoiled and lifted her
+hands defensively.
+
+She trembled from head to foot, and her voice failed her; but she made
+a negative sign and smiled at him, turning as white as her tanned face
+could become.
+
+In his left hand he held his bow, while in his right he half lifted a
+murderous looking tomahawk.
+
+"What new flag mean?" he demanded, waving the bow's end toward the fort
+and bending his head down close to hers. "Who yonder?"
+
+"The great American Father has taken us under his protection," she
+explained. "We are big-knives now." It almost choked her to speak.
+
+"Ugh! heap damn fools," he said with a dark scowl. "Little friend much
+damn fool."
+
+He straightened up his tall form and stood leering at her for some
+seconds, then added:
+
+"Little friend get killed, scalped, maybe."
+
+The indescribable nobility of animal largeness, symmetry and strength
+showed in his form and attitude, but the expression of his countenance
+was absolutely repulsive--cold, hard, beastly.
+
+He did not speak again, but turned quickly, and stooping low,
+disappeared like a great brownish red serpent in the high grass, which
+scarcely stirred as he moved through it.
+
+Somehow that day made itself strangely memorable to Alice. She had been
+accustomed to stirring scenes and sudden changes of conditions; but
+this was the first time that she had ever joined actively in a public
+movement of importance. Then, too, Long-Hair's picturesque and rudely
+dramatic reappearance affected her imagination with an indescribable
+force. Moreover, the pathetic situation in the love affair between Rene
+and Adrienne had taken hold of her conscience with a disturbing grip.
+But the shadowy sense of impending events, of which she could form no
+idea, was behind it all. She had not heard of Brandywine, or Bunker
+Hill, or Lexington, or Concord; but something like a waft of their
+significance had blown through her mind. A great change was coming into
+her idyllic life. She was indistinctly aware of it, as we sometimes are
+of an approaching storm, while yet the sky is sweetly blue and serene.
+When she reached home the house was full of people to whom M.
+Roussillon, in the gayest of moods, was dispensing wine and brandy.
+
+"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!" shouted Oncle Jazon as soon as he saw her.
+
+And then they all talked at once, saying flattering things about her.
+Madame Roussillon tried to scold as usual; but the lively chattering of
+the guests drowned her voice.
+
+"I suppose the American commander will send a garrison here," some one
+said to Father Gibault, "and repair the fort."
+
+"Probably," the priest replied, "in a very few weeks. Meantime we will
+garrison it ourselves."
+
+"And we will have M. Roussillon for commander," spoke up Rene de
+Ronville, who was standing by.
+
+"A good suggestion," assented Father Gibault; "let us organize at once."
+
+Immediately the word was passed that there would be a meeting at the
+fort that evening for the purpose of choosing a garrison and a
+commander. Everybody went promptly at the hour set. M. Roussillon was
+elected Captain by acclamation, with Rene de Ronville as his
+Lieutenant. It was observed that Oncle Jazon had resumed his dignity,
+and that he looked into his cap several times without speaking.
+
+Meantime certain citizens, who had been in close relations with
+Governor Abbott during his stay, quietly slipped out of town, manned a
+batteau and went up the river, probably to Ouiatenon first and then to
+Detroit. Doubtless they suspected that things might soon grow too warm
+for their comfort.
+
+It was thus that Vincennes and Fort Sackville first acknowledged the
+American Government and hoisted the flag which, as long as it floated
+over the blockhouse, was lightly and lovingly called by everyone la
+banniere d'Alice Roussillon.
+
+Father Gibault returned to Fort Kaskaskia and a little later Captain
+Leonard Helm, a jovial man, but past the prime of life, arrived at
+Vincennes with a commission from Col. Clark authorizing him to
+supersede M. Roussillon as commander, and to act as Indian agent for
+the American Government in the Department of the Wabash. He was
+welcomed by the villagers, and at once made himself very pleasing to
+them by adapting himself to their ways and entering heartily into their
+social activities.
+
+M. Roussillon was absent when Captain Helm and his party came. Rene de
+Ronville, nominally in command of the fort, but actually enjoying some
+excellent grouse shooting with a bell-mouthed old fowling piece on a
+distant prairie, could not be present to deliver up the post; and as
+there was no garrison just then visible, Helm took possession, without
+any formalities.
+
+"I think, Lieutenant, that you'd better look around through the village
+and see if you can scare up this Captain what's-his-name," said the new
+commander to a stalwart young officer who had come with him. "I can't
+think of these French names without getting my brain in a twist. Do you
+happen to recollect the Captain's name, Lieutenant?"
+
+"Yes, sir; Gaspard Roussillon it reads in Colonel Clark's order; but I
+am told that he's away on a trading tour," said the young man.
+
+"You may be told anything by these hair-tongued parlyvoos," Helm
+remarked. "It won't hurt, anyway, to find out where he lives and make a
+formal call, just for appearance sake, and to enquire about his health.
+I wish you would try it, sir, and let me know the result."
+
+The Lieutenant felt that this was a peremptory order and turned about
+to obey promptly.
+
+"And I say, Beverley, come back sober, if you possibly can," Helm added
+in his most genial tone, thinking it a great piece of humor to suggest
+sobriety to a man whose marked difference from men generally, of that
+time, was his total abstinence from intoxicating drinks.
+
+Lieutenant Fitzhugh Beverley was a Virginian of Virginians. His family
+had long been prominent in colonial affairs and boasted a record of
+great achievements both in peace and in war. He was the only son of his
+parents and heir to a fine estate consisting of lands and slaves; but,
+like many another of the restless young cavaliers of the Old Dominion,
+he had come in search of adventure over into Kentucky, along the path
+blazed by Daniel Boone; and when Clark organized his little army, the
+young man's patriotic and chivalrous nature leaped at the opportunity
+to serve his country under so gallant a commander.
+
+Beverley was not a mere youth, although yet somewhat under thirty.
+Educated abroad and naturally of a thoughtful and studious turn, he had
+enriched his mind far beyond the usual limit among young Americans of
+the very best class in that time; and so he appeared older than he
+really was: an effect helped out by his large and powerful form and
+grave dignity of bearing. Clark, who found him useful in emergencies,
+cool, intrepid, daring to a fault and possessed of excellent judgement,
+sent him with Helm, hoping that he would offset with his orderly
+attention to details the somewhat go-as-you-please disposition of that
+excellent officer.
+
+Beverley set out in search of the French commander's house, impressed
+with no particular respect for him or his office. Somehow Americans of
+Anglo-Saxon blood were slow to recognize any good qualities whatever in
+the Latin Creoles of the West and South. It seemed to them that the
+Frenchman and the Spaniard were much too apt to equalize themselves
+socially and matrimonially with Indians and negroes. The very fact that
+for a century, while Anglo-Americans had been in constant bloody
+warfare with savages, Frenchmen had managed to keep on easy and highly
+profitable trading terms with them, tended to confirm the worst
+implication. "Eat frogs and save your scalp," was a bit of contemptuous
+frontier humor indicative of what sober judgement held in reserve on
+the subject.
+
+Intent upon his formal mission, Lieutenant Beverley stalked boldly into
+the inclosure at Roussillon place and was met on the gallery by Madame
+Roussillon in one of her worst moods. She glared at him with her hands
+on her hips, her mouth set irritably aslant upward, her eyebrows
+gathered into a dark knot over her nose. It would be hard to imagine a
+more forbidding countenance; and for supplementary effect out popped
+hunchback Jean to stand behind her, with his big head lying back in the
+hollow of his shoulders and his long chin elevated, while he gawped
+intently up into Beverley's face.
+
+"Bon jour, Madame," said the Lieutenant, lifting his hat and speaking
+with a pleasant accent. "Would it be agreeable to Captain Roussillon
+for me to see him a moment?"
+
+Despite Beverley's cleverness in using the French language, he had a
+decided brusqueness of manner and a curt turn of voice not in the least
+Gallic. True, the soft Virginian intonation marked every word, and his
+obeisance was as low as if Madame Roussillon had been a queen; but the
+light French grace was wholly lacking.
+
+"What do you want of my husband?" Madame Roussillon demanded.
+
+"Nothing unpleasant, I assure you, Madame," said Beverley.
+
+"Well, he's not at home, Mo'sieu; he's up the river for a few days."
+
+She relaxed her stare, untied her eyebrows, and even let fall her hands
+from her shelf-like hips.
+
+"Thank you, Madame," said Beverley, bowing again, "I am sorry not to
+have seen him."
+
+As he was turning to go a shimmer of brown hair streaked with gold
+struck upon his vision from just within the door. He paused, as if in
+response to a military command, while a pair of gray eyes met his with
+a flash. The cabin room was ill lighted; but the crepuscular dimness
+did not seem to hinder his sight. Beyond the girl's figure, a pair of
+slender swords hung crossed aslant on the wall opposite the low door.
+
+Beverley had seen, in the old world galleries, pictures in which the
+shadowy and somewhat uncertain background thus forced into strongest
+projection the main figure, yet without clearly defining it. The rough
+frame of the doorway gave just the rustic setting suited to Alice's
+costume, the most striking part of which was a grayish short gown
+ending just above her fringed buckskin moccasins. Around her head she
+had bound a blue kerchief, a wide corner of which lay over her crown
+like a loose cap. Her bright hair hung free upon her shoulders in
+tumbled half curls. As a picture, the figure and its entourage might
+have been artistically effective; but as Beverley saw it in actual life
+the first impression was rather embarrassing. Somehow he felt almost
+irresistibly invited to laugh, though he had never been much given to
+risibility. The blending, or rather the juxtaposition, of extremes--a
+face, a form immediately witching, and a costume odd to
+grotesquery--had made an assault upon his comprehension at once so
+sudden and so direct that his dignity came near being disastrously
+broken up. A splendidly beautiful child comically clad would have made
+much the same half delightful, half displeasing impression.
+
+Beverley could not stare at the girl, and no sooner had he turned his
+back upon her than the picture in his mind changed like a scene in a
+kaleidoscope. He now saw a tall, finely developed figure and a face
+delicately oval, with a low, wide forehead, arched brows, a straight,
+slightly tip-tilted nose, a mouth sweet and full, dimpled cheeks, and a
+strong chin set above a faultless throat. His imagination, in casting
+off its first impression, was inclined to exaggerate Alice's beauty and
+to dwell upon its picturesqueness. He smiled as he walked back to the
+fort, and even found himself whistling gayly a snatch from a rollicking
+fiddle-tune that he had heard when a boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A FENCING BOUT
+
+
+A few days after Helm's arrival, M. Roussillon returned to Vincennes,
+and if he was sorely touched in his amour propre by seeing his suddenly
+acquired military rank and title drop away, he did not let it be known
+to his fellow citizens. He promptly called upon the new commander and
+made acquaintance with Lieutenant Fitzhugh Beverley, who just then was
+superintending the work of cleaning up an old cannon in the fort and
+mending some breaks in the stockade.
+
+Helm formed a great liking for the big Frenchman, whose breezy freedom
+of manner and expansive good humor struck him favorably from the
+beginning. M. Roussillon's ability to speak English with considerable
+ease helped the friendship along, no doubt; at all events their first
+interview ended with a hearty show of good fellowship, and as time
+passed they became almost inseparable companions during M. Roussillon's
+periods of rest from his trading excursions among the Indians. They
+played cards and brewed hot drinks over which they told marvelous
+stories, the latest one invariably surpassing all its predecessors.
+
+Helm had an eye to business, and turned M. Roussillon's knowledge of
+the Indians to valuable account, so that he soon had very pleasant
+relations with most of the tribes within reach of his agents. This gave
+a feeling of great security to the people of Vincennes. They pursued
+their narrow agricultural activities with excellent results and
+redoubled those social gayeties which, even in hut and cabin under all
+the adverse conditions of extreme frontier life, were dear to the
+volatile and genial French temperament.
+
+Lieutenant Beverley found much to interest him in the quaint town; but
+the piece de resistance was Oncle Jazon, who proved to be both
+fascinating and unmanageable; a hard nut to crack, yet possessing a
+kernel absolutely original in flavor. Beverley visited him one evening
+in his hut--it might better be called den--a curiously built thing,
+with walls of vertical poles set in a quadrangular trench dug in the
+ground, and roofed with grass. Inside and out it was plastered with
+clay, and the floor of dried mud was as smooth and hard as concrete
+paving. In one end there was a wide fireplace grimy with soot, in the
+other a mere peep-hole for a window: a wooden bench, a bed of skins and
+two or three stools were barely visible in the gloom. In the doorway
+Oncle Jazon sat whittling a slender billet of hickory into a ramrod for
+his long flint-lock American rifle.
+
+"Maybe ye know Simon Kenton," said the old man, after he and Beverley
+had conversed for a while, "seeing that you are from Kentucky--eh?"
+
+"Yes, I do know him well; he's a warm personal friend of mine," said
+Beverley with quick interest, for it surprised him that Oncle Jazon
+should know anything about Kenton. "Do you know him, Monsieur Jazon?"
+
+Oncle Jazon winked conceitedly and sighted along his rudimentary ramrod
+to see if it was straight; then puckering his lips, as if on the point
+of whistling, made an affirmative noise quite impossible to spell.
+
+"Well, I'm glad you are acquainted with Kenton," said Beverley. "Where
+did you and he come together?"
+
+Oncle Jazon chuckled reminiscently and scratched the skinless,
+cicatrized spot where his scalp had once flourished.
+
+"Oh, several places," he answered. "Ye see thet hair a hangin' there on
+the wall?" He pointed at a dry wisp dangling under a peg in a log
+barely visible by the bad light. "Well, thet's my scalp, he! he! he!"
+He snickered as if the fact were a most enjoyable joke. "Simon Kenton
+can tell ye about thet little affair! The Indians thought I was dead,
+and they took my hair; but I wasn't dead; I was just a givin' 'em a
+'possum act. When they was gone I got up from where I was a layin' and
+trotted off. My head was sore and ventrebleu! but I was mad, he! he!
+he!"
+
+All this time he spoke in French, and the English but poorly
+paraphrases his odd turns of expression. His grimaces and grunts cannot
+even be hinted.
+
+It was a long story, as Beverley received it, told scrappily, but with
+certain rude art. In the end Oncle Jazon said with unctuous
+self-satisfaction:
+
+"Accidents will happen. I got my chance at that damned Indian who
+skinned my head, and I jes took a bead on 'im with my old rifle. I
+can't shoot much, never could, but I happened to hit 'im square in the
+lef' eye, what I shot at, and it was a hundred yards. Down he tumbles,
+and I runs to 'im and finds my same old scalp a hangin' to his belt.
+Well, I lifted off his hair with my knife, and untied mine from the
+belt, and then I had both scalps, he! he! he! You ask Simon Kenton when
+ye see 'im. He was along at the same time, and they made 'im run the
+ga'ntlet and pretty nigh beat the life out o' 'im. Ventrebleu!"
+
+Beverley now recollected hearing Kenton tell the same grim story by a
+camp-fire in the hills of Kentucky. Somehow it had caught a new spirit
+in the French rendering, which linked it with the old tales of
+adventure that he had read in his boyhood, and it suddenly endeared
+Oncle Jazon to him. The rough old scrap of a man and the powerful youth
+chatted together until sundown, smoking their pipes, each feeling for
+what was best in the other, half aware that in the future they would be
+tested together in the fire of wild adventure. Every man is more or
+less a prophet at certain points in his life.
+
+Twilight and moonlight were blending softly when Beverley, on his way
+back to the fort, departing from a direct course, went along the
+river's side southward to have a few moments of reflective strolling
+within reach of the water's pleasant murmur and the town's indefinite
+evening stir. Rich sweetness, the gift of early autumn, was on the air
+blowing softly out of a lilac west and singing in the willow fringe
+that hung here and there over the bank.
+
+On the farther side of the river's wide flow, swollen by recent heavy
+rains, Beverley saw a pirogue, in one end of which a dark figure swayed
+to the strokes of a paddle. The slender and shallow little craft was
+bobbing on the choppy waves and taking a zig-zag course among floating
+logs and masses of lighter driftwood, while making slow but certain
+headway toward the hither bank.
+
+Beverley took a bit of punk and a flint and steel from his pocket,
+relit his pipe and stood watching the skilful boatman conduct his
+somewhat dangerous voyage diagonally against the rolling current. It
+was a shifting, hide-and-seek scene, its features appearing and
+disappearing with the action of the waves and the doubtful light
+reflected from fading clouds and sky. Now and again the man stood up in
+his skittish pirogue, balancing himself with care, to use a short pole
+in shoving driftwood out of his way; and more than once he looked to
+Beverley as if he had plunged head-long into the dark water.
+
+The spot, as nearly as it can be fixed, was about two hundred yards
+below where the public road-bridge at present spans the Wabash. The
+bluff was then far different from what it is now, steeper and higher,
+with less silt and sand between it and the water's edge. Indeed,
+swollen as the current was, a man could stand on the top of the bank
+and easily leap into the deep water. At a point near the middle of the
+river a great mass of drift-logs and sand had long ago formed a barrier
+which split the stream so that one current came heavily shoreward on
+the side next the town and swashed with its muddy foam, making a swirl
+and eddy just below where Beverley stood.
+
+The pirogue rounded the upper angle of this obstruction, not without
+difficulty to its crew of one, and swung into the rapid shoreward rush,
+as was evidently planned for by the steersman, who now paddled against
+the tide with all his might to keep from being borne too far down
+stream for a safe landing place.
+
+Beverley stood at ease idly and half dreamily looking on, when suddenly
+something caused a catastrophe, which for a moment he did not
+comprehend. In fact the man in the pirogue came to grief, as a man in a
+pirogue is very apt to do, and fairly somersaulted overboard into the
+water. Nothing serious would have threatened (for the man could swim
+like an otter) had not a floating, half submerged log thrust up some
+short, stiff stumps of boughs, upon the points of which the man struck
+heavily and was not only hurt, but had his clothes impaled securely by
+one of the ugly spears, so that he hung in a helpless position, while
+the water's motion alternately lifted and submerged him, his arms
+beating about wildly.
+
+When Beverley heard a strangling cry for help, he pulled himself
+promptly together, flung off his coat, as if by a single motion, and
+leaped down the bank into the water. He was a swimmer whose strokes
+counted for all that prodigious strength and excellent training could
+afford; he rushed through the water with long sweeps, making a
+semicircle, rounding against the current, so as to swing down upon the
+drowning man.
+
+Less than a half-hour later a rumor by some means spread throughout the
+town that Father Beret and Lieutenant Beverley were drowned in the
+Wabash. But when a crowd gathered to verify the terrible news it turned
+out to be untrue. Gaspard Roussillon had once more distinguished
+himself by an exhibition of heroic nerve and muscle.
+
+"Ventrebleu! Quel homme!" exclaimed Oncle Jazon, when told that M.
+Roussillon had come up the bank of the Wabash with Lieutenant Beverley
+under one arm and Father Beret under the other, both men apparently
+dead.
+
+"Bring them to my house immediately," M. Roussillon ordered, as soon as
+they were restored to consciousness; and he shook himself, as a big wet
+animal sometimes does, covering everybody near him with muddy water.
+Then he led the way with melodramatic strides.
+
+In justice to historical accuracy there must be a trifling reform of
+what appeared on the face of things to be grandly true. Gaspard
+Roussillon actually dragged Father Beret and Lieutenant Beverley one at
+a time out of the eddy water and up the steep river bank. That was
+truly a great feat; but the hero never explained. When men arrived he
+was standing between the collapsed forms, panting and dripping.
+Doubtless he looked just as if he had dropped them from under his arms,
+and why shouldn't he have the benefit of a great implication?
+
+"I've saved them both," he roared; from which, of course, the ready
+creole imagination inferred the extreme of possible heroic performance.
+
+"Bring them to my house immediately," and it was accordingly done.
+
+The procession, headed by M. Roussillon, moved noisily, for the French
+tongue must shake off what comes to it on the thrill of every exciting
+moment. The only silent Frenchman is the dead one.
+
+Father Beret was not only well-nigh drowned, but seriously hurt. He lay
+for a week on a bed in M. Roussillon's house before he could sit up.
+Alice hung over him night and day, scarcely sleeping or eating until he
+was past all danger. As for Beverley, he shook off all the effects of
+his struggle in a little while. Next day he was out, as well and strong
+as ever, busy with the affairs of his office. Nor was he less happy on
+account of what the little adventure had cast into his experience. It
+is good to feel that one has done an unselfish deed, and no young man's
+heart repels the freshness of what comes to him when a beautiful girl
+first enters his life.
+
+Naturally enough Alice had some thoughts of Beverley while she was so
+attentively caring for Father Beret. She had never before seen a man
+like him, nor had she read of one. Compared with Rene de Ronville, the
+best youth of her acquaintance, he was in every way superior; this was
+too evident for analysis; but referred to the romantic standard taken
+out of the novels she had read, he somehow failed; and yet he loomed
+bravely in her vision, not exactly a knight of the class she had most
+admired, still unquestionably a hero of large proportions.
+
+Beverley stepped in for a few minutes every day to see Father Beret,
+involuntarily lengthening his visit by a sliding ratio as he became
+better acquainted. He began to enjoy the priest's conversation, with
+its sly worldly wisdom cropping up through fervid religious sentiments
+and quaint humor. Alice must have interested him more than he was fully
+aware of; for his eyes followed her, as she came and went, with a
+curious criticism of her half-savage costume and her springy,
+Dryad-like suppleness, which reminded him of the shyest and gracefulest
+wild birds; and yet a touch of refinement, the subtlest and best,
+showed in all her ways. He studied her, as he would have studied a
+strange, showy and originally fragrant flower, or a bird of oddly
+attractive plumage. While she said little to him or to anyone else in
+his presence, he became aware of the willfulness and joyous lightness
+which played on her nature's changeable surface. He wondered at her
+influence over Father Beret, whom she controlled apparently without
+effort. But in due time he began to feel a deeper character, a broader
+intelligence, behind her superficial sauvagerie; and he found that she
+really had no mean smattering of books in the lighter vein.
+
+A little thing happened which further opened his eyes and increased the
+interest that her beauty and elementary charm of style aroused in him
+gradually, apace with their advancing acquaintanceship.
+
+Father Beret had got well and returned to his hut and his round of
+spiritual duties; but Beverley came to Roussillon place every day all
+the same. For a wonder Madame Roussillon liked him, and at most times
+held the scolding side of her tongue when he was present. Jean, too,
+made friendly advances whenever opportunity afforded. Of course Alice
+gave him just the frank cordiality of hospitable welcome demanded by
+frontier conditions. She scarcely knew whether she liked him or not;
+but he had a treasury of information from which he was enriching her
+with liberal carelessness day by day. The hungriest part of her mind
+was being sumptuously banqueted at his expense. Mere intellectual
+greediness drew her to him.
+
+Naturally they soon threw off such troubling formalities as at first
+rose between them, and began to disclose to each other their true
+characteristics. Alice found in Beverley a large target for the
+missiles of her clever and tantalizing perversity. He in turn practiced
+a native dignity and an acquired superiority of manner to excellent
+effect. It was a meeting of Greek with Greek in a new Arcadia. To him
+here was Diana, strong, strange, simple, even crude almost to
+naturalness, yet admirably pure in spirit and imbued with highest
+womanly aspirations. To her Beverley represented the great outside area
+of life. He came to her from wonderland, beyond the wide circle of
+houseless woods and prairies. He represented gorgeous cities, teeming
+parks of fashion, boulevards, salons, halls of social splendor, the
+theater, the world of woman's dreams.
+
+Now, there is an antagonism, vague yet powerful, generated between
+natures thus cast together from the opposite poles of experience and
+education: an antagonism practically equivalent to the most vigorous
+attraction. What one knows the other is but half aware of; neither
+knowledge nor ignorance being mutual, there is a scintillation of
+exchange, from opposing vantage grounds, followed by harmless snaps of
+thunder. Culture and refinement take on airs--it is the deepest
+artificial instinct of enlightenment to pose--in the presence of
+naturalness; and there is a certain style of ignorance which
+attitudinizes before the gate of knowledge. The return to nature has
+always been the dream of the conventionalized soul, while the simple
+Arcadian is forever longing for the maddening honey of sophistication.
+
+Innate jealousies strike together like flint and steel dashing off
+sparks by which nearly everything that life can warm its core withal is
+kindled and kept burning. What I envy in my friend I store for my best
+use. I thrust and parry, not to kill, but to learn my adversary's
+superior feints and guards. And this hint of sword play leads back to
+what so greatly surprised and puzzled Beverley one day when he chanced
+to be examining the pair of colechemardes on the wall.
+
+He took one down, and handling it with the indescribable facility
+possible to none save a practical swordsman, remarked:
+
+"There's a world of fascination in these things; I like nothing better
+than a bout at fencing. Does your father practice the art?"
+
+"I have no father, no mother," she quickly said; "but good Papa
+Roussillon does like a little exercise with the colechemarde."
+
+"Well, I'm glad to hear it, I shall ask to teach him a trick or two,"
+Beverley responded in the lightest mood. "When will he return from the
+woods?"
+
+"I can't tell you; he's very irregular in such matters," she said.
+Then, with a smile half banter and half challenge, she added; "if you
+are really dying for some exercise, you shall not have to wait for him
+to come home, I assure you, Monsieur Beverley."
+
+"Oh, it's Monsieur de Ronville, perhaps, that you will offer up as a
+victim to my skill and address," he slyly returned; for he was
+suspecting that a love affair in some stage of progress lay between her
+and Rene.
+
+She blushed violently, but quickly overcoming a combined rush of
+surprise and anger, added with an emphasis as charming as it was
+unexpected.
+
+"I myself am, perhaps, swordsman enough to satisfy the impudence and
+vanity of Monsieur Beverley, Lieutenant in the American army."
+
+"Pardon me, Mademoiselle; forgive me, I beg of you," he exclaimed,
+earnestly modulating his voice to sincerest beseechment; "I really did
+not mean to be impudent, nor--"
+
+Her vivacity cleared with a merry laugh.
+
+"No apologies, I command you," she interposed. "We will have them after
+I have taught you a fencing lesson."
+
+From a shelf she drew down a pair of foils and presenting the hilts,
+bade him take his choice.
+
+"There isn't any difference between them that I know of," she said, and
+then added archly; "but you will feel better at last, when all is over
+and the sting of defeat tingles through you, if you are conscious of
+having used every sensible precaution."
+
+He looked straight into her eyes, trying to catch what was in her mind,
+but there was a bewildering glamour playing across those gray,
+opal-tinted wells of mystery, from which he could draw only a
+mischievous smile-glint, direct, daring, irresistible.
+
+"Well," he said, taking one of the foils, "what do you really mean? Is
+it a challenge without room for honorable retreat?"
+
+"The time for parley is past," she replied, "follow me to the
+battle-ground."
+
+She led the way to a pleasant little court in the rear of the cabin's
+yard, a space between two wings and a vine-covered trellis, beyond
+which lay a well kept vineyard and vegetable garden. Here she turned
+about and faced him, poising her foil with a fine grace.
+
+"Are you ready?" she inquired.
+
+He tried again to force a way into the depths of her eyes with his; but
+he might as well have attacked the sun; so he stood in a confusion of
+not very well defined feelings, undecided, hesitating, half expecting
+that there would be some laughable turn to end the affair.
+
+"Are you afraid, Monsieur Beverley?" she demanded after a short waiting
+in silence.
+
+He laughed now and whipped the air with his foil.
+
+"You certainly are not in earnest?" he said interrogatively. "Do you
+really mean that you want to fence with me?"
+
+"If you think because I'm only a girl you can easily beat me, try it,"
+she tauntingly replied making a level thrust toward his breast.
+
+Quick as a flash he parried, and then a merry clinking and twinkling of
+steel blades kept time to their swift movements. Instantly, by the sure
+sense which is half sight, half feeling--the sense that guides the
+expert fencer's hand and wrist--Beverley knew that he had probably more
+than his match, and in ten seconds his attack was met by a time thrust
+in opposition which touched him sharply.
+
+Alice sprang far back, lowered her point and laughed.
+
+"Je vous salue, Monsieur Beverley!" she cried, with childlike show of
+delight. "Did you feel the button?"
+
+"Yes, I felt it," he said with frank acknowledgment in his voice, "it
+was cleverly done. Now give me a chance to redeem myself."
+
+He began more carefully and found that she, too, was on her best
+mettle; but it was a short bout, as before. Alice seemed to give him an
+easy opening and he accepted it with a thrust; then something happened
+that he did not understand. The point of his foil was somehow caught
+under his opponent's hilt-guard while her blade seemed to twist around
+his; at the same time there was a wring and a jerk, the like of which
+he had never before felt, and he was disarmed, his wrist and fingers
+aching with the wrench they had received.
+
+Of course the thing was not new; he had been disarmed before; but her
+trick of doing it was quite a mystery to him, altogether different from
+any that he had ever seen.
+
+"Vous me pardonnerez, Monsieur," she mockingly exclaimed, picking up
+his weapon and offering the hilt to him. "Here is your sword!"
+
+"Keep it," he said, folding his arms and trying to look unconcerned,
+"you have captured it fairly. I am at your mercy; be kind to me."
+
+Madame Roussillon and Jean, the hunchback, hearing the racket of the
+foils had come out to see and were standing agape.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed, Alice," said the dame in scolding approval of
+what she had done; "girls do not fence with gentlemen."
+
+"This girl does," said Alice.
+
+"And with extreme disaster to this gentleman," said Beverley, laughing
+in a tone of discomfiture and resignation.
+
+"Ah, Mo'sieu', there's nothing but disaster where she goes," complained
+Madame Roussillon, "she is a destroyer of everything. Only yesterday
+she dropped my pink bowl and broke it, the only one I had."
+
+"And just to think," said Beverley, "what would have been the condition
+of my heart had we been using rapiers instead of leather-buttoned
+foils! She would have spitted it through the very center."
+
+"Like enough," replied the dame indifferently. "She wouldn't wince,
+either,--not she."
+
+Alice ran into the house with the foils and Beverley followed.
+
+"We must try it over again some day soon," he said; "I find that you
+can show me a few points. Where did you learn to fence so admirably? Is
+Monsieur Roussillon your master?"
+
+"Indeed he isn't," she quickly replied, "he is but a bungling
+swordsman. My master--but I am not at liberty to tell you who has
+taught me the little I know."
+
+"Well, whoever he is I should be glad to have lessons from him."
+
+"But you'll never get them."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because."
+
+"A woman's ultimatum."
+
+"As good as a man's!" she bridled prettily; "and sometimes better--at
+the foils for example. Vous--comprenez, n'est ce pas?"
+
+He laughed heartily.
+
+"Yes, your point reaches me," he said, "but sperat et in saeva victus
+gladiatur arena, as the old Latin poet wisely remarks." The quotation
+was meant to tease her.
+
+"Yes, Montaigne translated that or something in his book," she
+commented with prompt erudition. "I understand it."
+
+Beverley looked amazed.
+
+"What do you know about Montaigne?" he demanded with a blunt brevity
+amounting to something like gruffness.
+
+"Sh', Monsieur, not too loud," she softly protested, looking around to
+see that neither Madame Roussillon nor Jean had followed them into the
+main room. "It is not permitted that I read that old book; but they do
+not hide it from me, because they think I can't make out its dreadful
+spelling."
+
+She smiled so that her cheeks drew their dimples deep into the
+delicately tinted pink-and-brown, where wind and sun and wholesome
+exercise had set the seal of absolute health, and took from a niche in
+the logs of the wall a stained and dog-eared volume. He looked, and it
+was, indeed, the old saint and sinner, Montaigne.
+
+Involuntarily he ran his eyes over the girl from head to foot,
+comparing her show of knowledge with the outward badges of abject
+rusticity, and even wildness, with which she was covered.
+
+"Well," he said, "you are a mystery."
+
+"You think it surprising that I can read a book! Frankly I can't
+understand half of this one. I read it because--well just because they
+want me to read about nothing but sickly old saints and woe-begone
+penitents. I like something lively. What do I care for all that
+uninteresting religious stuff?"
+
+"Montaigne IS decidedly lively in spots," Beverley remarked. "I
+shouldn't think a girl--I shouldn't think you'd particularly enjoy his
+humors."
+
+"I don't care for the book at all," she said, flushing quickly, "only I
+seem to learn about the world from it. Sometimes it seems as if it
+lifted me up high above all this wild, lonely and tiresome country, so
+that I can see far off where things are different and beautiful. It is
+the same with the novels; and they don't permit me to read them either;
+but all the same I do."
+
+When Beverley, taking his leave, passed through the gate at Roussillon
+place, he met Rene de Ronville going in. It was a notable coincidence
+that each young man felt something troublesome rise in his throat as he
+looked into the other's eyes.
+
+A week of dreamy autumn weather came on, during which Beverley managed
+to be with Alice a great deal, mostly sitting on the Roussillon
+gallery, where the fading vine leaves made fairy whispering, and where
+the tempered breeze blew deliciously cool from over the distant
+multi-colored woods. The men of Vincennes were gathering their Indian
+corn early to dry it on the cob for grating into winter meal. Many
+women made wine from the native grapes and from the sweeter and richer
+fruit of imported vines. Madame Roussillon and Alice stained their
+hands a deep purple during the pressing season, and Beverley found
+himself engaged in helping them handle the juicy crop, while around the
+overflowing earthen pots the wild bees, wasps and hornets hummed with
+an incessant, jarring monotony.
+
+Jean, the hunchback, gathered ample stores of hickory nuts, walnuts,
+hazel-nuts and pin-oak acorns. Indeed, the whole population of the
+village made a great spurt of industry just before the falling of
+winter; and presently, when every preparation had been completed for
+the dreaded cold season, M. Roussillon carried out his long-cherished
+plan, and gave a great party at the river house. After the most
+successful trading experience of all his life he felt irrepressibly
+liberal.
+
+"Let's have one more roaring good time," he said, "that's what life is
+for."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE MAYOR'S PARTY
+
+
+Beverley was so surprised and confused in his mind by the ease with
+which he had been mastered at swordplay by a mere girl, that he felt as
+if just coming out of a dream. In fact the whole affair seemed unreal,
+yet so vivid and impressive in all its main features, that he could not
+emerge from it and look it calmly over from without. His experience
+with women had not prepared him for a ready understanding and
+acceptance of a girl like Alice. While he was fully aware of her
+beauty, freshness, vivacity and grace, this Amazonian strength of hers,
+this boldness of spirit, this curious mixture of frontier crudeness and
+a certain adumbration--so to call it--of patrician sensibilities and
+aspirations, affected him both pleasantly and unpleasantly. He did not
+sympathize promptly with her semi-barbaric costume; she seemed not
+gently feminine, as compared with the girls of Virginia and Maryland.
+He resented her muscular development and her independent disposition.
+She was far from coarseness, however, and, indeed, a trace of subtle
+refinement, although not conventional, imbued her whole character.
+
+But why was he thinking so critically about her? Had his selfishness
+received an incurable shock from the button of her foil? A healthy
+young man of the right sort is apt to be jealous of his physical
+prowess--touch him there and he will turn the world over to right
+himself in, his own admiration and yours. But to be beaten on his
+highest ground of virility by a dimple-faced maiden just leaving her
+teens could not offer Beverley any open way to recoupment of damages.
+
+He tried to shake her out of his mind, as a bit of pretty and
+troublesome rubbish, what time he pursued his not very exacting
+military duties. But the more he shook the tighter she clung, and the
+oftener he went to see her.
+
+Helm was a good officer in many respects, and his patriotism was of the
+best; but he liked jolly company, a glass of something strong and a
+large share of ease. Detroit lay many miles northeastward across the
+wilderness, and the English, he thought, would scarcely come so far to
+attack his little post, especially now that most of the Indians in the
+intervening country had declared in favor of the Americans. Recently,
+too, the weather had been favoring him by changing from wet to dry, so
+that the upper Wabash and its tributaries were falling low and would
+soon be very difficult to navigate with large batteaux.
+
+Very little was done to repair the stockade and dilapidated remnant of
+a blockhouse. There were no sufficient barracks, a mere shed in one
+angle serving for quarters, and the old cannon could not have been used
+to any effect in case of attack. As for the garrison, it was a nominal
+quantity, made up mostly of men who preferred hunting and fishing to
+the merest pretense of military duty.
+
+Gaspard Roussillon assumed to know everything about Indian affairs and
+the condition of the English at Detroit. His optimistic eloquence
+lulled Helm to a very pleasant sense of security. Beverley was not so
+easy to satisfy; but his suggestions regarding military discipline and
+a vigorous prosecution of repairs to the blockhouse and stockade were
+treated with dilatory geniality by his superior officer. The soft
+wonder of a perfect Indian summer glorified land, river and sky. Why
+not dream and bask? Why not drink exhilarating toddies?
+
+Meantime the entertainment to be given by Gaspard Roussillon occupied
+everybody's imagination to an unusual extent. Rene de Ronville,
+remembering but not heeding the doubtful success of his former attempt,
+went long beforehand to claim Alice as his partenaire; but she flatly
+refused him, once more reminding him of his obligations to little
+Adrienne Bourcier. He would not be convinced.
+
+"You are bound to me," he said, "you promised before, you know, and the
+party was but put off. I hold you to it; you are my partenaire, and I
+am yours, you can't deny that."
+
+"No you are not my partenaire," she firmly said; then added lightly,
+"Feu mon partenaire, you are dead and buried as my partner at that
+dance."
+
+He glowered in silence for a few moments, then said:
+
+"It is Lieutenant Beverley, I suppose."
+
+She gave him a quick contemptuous look, but turned it instantly into
+one of her tantalising smiles.
+
+"Do you imagine that?" she demanded.
+
+"Imagine it! I know it," he said with a hot flush. "Have I no sense?"
+
+"Precious little," she replied with a merry laugh.
+
+"You think so."
+
+"Go to Father Beret, tell him everything, and then ask him what he
+thinks," she said in a calm, even tone, her face growing serious.
+
+There was an awkward silence.
+
+She had touched Rene's vulnerable spot; he was nothing if not a devout
+Catholic, and his conscience rooted itself in what good Father Beret
+had taught him.
+
+The church, no matter by what name it goes, Catholic or Protestant, has
+a saving hold on the deepest inner being of its adherents. No grip is
+so hard to shake off as that of early religious convictions. The still,
+small voice coming down from the times "When shepherds watched their
+flocks by night," in old Judea, passes through the priest, the
+minister, the preacher; it echoes in cathedral, church, open-air
+meeting; it gently and mysteriously imparts to human life the
+distinctive quality which is the exponent of Christian civilization.
+Upon the receptive nature of children it makes an impress that forever
+afterward exhales a fragrance and irradiates a glory for the saving of
+the nations.
+
+Father Beret was the humble, self-effacing, never-tiring agent of good
+in his community. He preached in a tender sing-song voice the sweet
+monotonies of his creed and the sublime truths of Christ's code. He was
+indeed the spiritual father of his people. No wonder Rene's scowling
+expression changed to one of abject self-concern when the priest's name
+was suddenly connected with his mood. The confessional loomed up before
+the eyes of his conscience, and his knees smote together, spiritually
+if not physically.
+
+"Now," said Alice, brusquely, but with sweet and gentle firmness, "go
+to your fiancee, go to pretty and good Adrienne, and ask her to be your
+partenaire. Refresh your conscience with a noble draught of duty and
+make that dear little girl overflow with joy. Go, Rene de Ronville."
+
+In making over what she said into English, the translation turns out to
+be but a sonorous paraphrase. Her French was of that mixed creole sort,
+a blending of linguistic elegance and patois, impossible to imitate.
+Like herself it was beautiful, crude, fascinating, and something in it
+impressed itself as unimpeachable, despite the broken and incongruous
+diction. Rene felt his soul cowering, even slinking; but he fairly
+maintained a good face, and went away without saying another word.
+
+"Ciel, ciel, how beautiful she is!" he thought, as he walked along the
+narrow street in the dreamy sunshine. "But she is not for me, not for
+me."
+
+He shook himself and tried to be cheerful. In fact he hummed a Creole
+ditty, something about
+
+  "La belle Jeanette, qu' a brise mon coeur."
+
+Days passed, and at last the time of the great event arrived. It was a
+frosty night, clear, sparkling with stars, a keen breath cutting down
+from the northwest. M. Roussillon, Madame Roussillon, Alice and
+Lieutenant Beverley went together to the river house, whither they had
+been preceded by almost the entire population of Vincennes. Some fires
+had been built outside; the crowd proving too great for the building's
+capacity, as there had to be ample space for the dancers. Merry groups
+hovered around the flaming logs, while within the house a fiddle sang
+its simple and ravishing tunes. Everybody talked and laughed; it was a
+lively racket of clashing voices and rhythmical feet.
+
+You would have been surprised to find that Oncle Jazon was the fiddler;
+but there he sat, perched on a high stool in one corner of the large
+room, sawing away as if for dear life, his head wagging, his elbow
+leaping back and forth, while his scalpless crown shone like the side
+of a peeled onion and his puckered mouth wagged grotesquely from side
+to side keeping time to his tuneful scraping.
+
+When the Roussillon party arrived it attracted condensed attention. Its
+importance, naturally of the greatest in the assembled popular mind,
+was enhanced--as mathematicians would say, to the nth power--by the
+gown of Alice. It was resplendent indeed in the simple, unaccustomed
+eyes upon which it flashed with a buff silken glory. Matrons stared at
+it; maidens gazed with fascinated and jealous vision; men young and old
+let their eyes take full liberty. It was as if a queen, arrayed in a
+robe of state, had entered that dingy log edifice, an apparition of
+dazzling and awe-inspiring beauty. Oncle Jazon caught sight of her, and
+snapped his tune short off. The dancers swung together and stopped in
+confusion. But she, fortified by a woman's strongest bulwark, the sense
+of resplendency, appeared quite unconscious of herself.
+
+Little Adrienne, hanging in blissful delight upon Rene's strong arm,
+felt the stir of excitement and wondered what was the matter, being too
+short to see over the heads of those around her.
+
+"What is it? what is it?" she cried, tiptoeing and tugging at her
+companion's sleeve. "Tell me, Rene, tell me, I say."
+
+Rene was gazing in dumb admiration into which there swept a powerful
+anger, like a breath of flame. He recollected how Alice had refused to
+wear that dress when he had asked her, and now she had it on. Moreover,
+there she stood beside Lieutenant Beverley, holding his arm, looking up
+into his face, smiling, speaking to him.
+
+"I think you might tell me what has happened," said Adrienne, pouting
+and still plucking at his arm. "I can't see a thing, and you won't tell
+me."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," he presently answered, rather fretfully. Then he
+stooped, lowered his voice and added; "it's Mademoiselle Roussillon all
+dressed up like a bride or something. She's got on a buff silk dress
+that Mo'sieu' Roussillon's mother had in France."
+
+"How beautiful she must look!" cried the girl. "I wish I could see her."
+
+Rene put a hand on each side of her slender waist and lifted her high,
+so that her pretty head rose above the crowding people. Alice chanced
+to turn her face that way just then and saw the unconventional
+performance. Her eyes met those of Adrienne and she gave a nod of
+smiling recognition. It was a rose beaming upon a gilliflower.
+
+M. Roussillon naturally understood that all this stir and crowding to
+see was but another demonstration of his personal popularity. He bowed
+and waved a vast hand.
+
+But the master of ceremonies called loudly for the dancers to take
+their places. Oncle Jazon attacked his fiddle again with startling
+energy. Those who were not to dance formed a compact double line around
+the wall, the shorter ones in front, the taller in the rear. And what a
+scene it was! but no person present regarded it as in any way strange
+or especially picturesque, save as to the gown of Alice, which was now
+floating and whirling in time to Oncle Jazon's mad music. The people
+outside the house cheerfully awaited their turn to go in while an equal
+number went forth to chat and sing around the fires.
+
+Beverley was in a young man's seventh heaven. The angels formed a choir
+circling around his heart, and their song brimmed his universe from
+horizon to horizon.
+
+When he called at Roussillon place, and Alice appeared so beautifully
+and becomingly robed, it was another memorable surprise. She flashed a
+new and subtly stimulating light upon him. The old gown, rich in
+subdued splendor of lace and brocade, was ornamented at the throat with
+a heavy band of pearls, just above which could be seen a trace of the
+gold chain that supported her portrait locket. There, too, with a not
+unbecoming gleam of barbaric colors, shone the string of porcupine
+beads to which the Indian charmstone hidden in her bosom was attached.
+It all harmonized with the time, the place, the atmosphere. Anywhere
+else it would have been preposterous as a decorative presentment, but
+here, in this little nook where the coureurs de bois, the half-breeds,
+the traders and the missionaries had founded a centre of assembly, it
+was the best possible expression in the life so formed at hap-hazard,
+and so controlled by the coarsest and narrowest influences. To Fitzhugh
+Beverley, of Beverley Hall, the picture conveyed immediately a sweet
+and pervading influence.
+
+Alice looked superbly tall, stately and self-possessed in her
+transforming costume, a woman of full stature, her countenance gravely
+demure yet reserving near the surface the playful dimples and
+mischievous smiles so characteristic of her more usual manner. A sudden
+mood of the varium et mutabile semper femina had led her to wear the
+dress, and the mood still illuminated her.
+
+Beverley stood before her frankly looking and admiring. The underglow
+in her cheeks deepened and spread over her perfect throat; her eyes met
+his a second, then shyly avoided him. He hardly could have been sure
+which was master, her serenity or her girlish delight in being
+attractively dressed; but there could be no doubt as to her
+self-possession; for, saving the pretty blush under his almost rude
+gaze of admiration, she bore herself as firmly as any fine lady he
+remembered.
+
+They walked together to the river house, she daintily holding up her
+skirts, under the insistent verbal direction of Madame Roussillon, and
+at the same time keeping a light, strangely satisfying touch on his
+arm. When they entered the room there was no way for Beverley to escape
+full consciousness of the excitement they aroused; but M. Roussillon's
+assumption broke the force of what would have otherwise been extremely
+embarrassing.
+
+"It is encouraging, very encouraging," murmured the big man to Beverley
+in the midst of the staring and scrambling and craning of necks, "to
+have my people admire and love me so; it goes to the middle of my
+heart." And again he bowed and waved his hand with an all-including
+gesture, while he swept his eyes over the crowd.
+
+Alice and Beverley were soon in the whirl of the dance, forgetful of
+everything but an exhilaration stirred to its utmost by Oncle Jazon's
+music.
+
+A side remark here may be of interest to those readers who enjoy the
+dream that on some fortunate day they will invade a lonely nook, where
+amid dust and cobwebs, neglected because unrecognized, reposes a
+masterpiece of Stradivari or some other great fiddle-maker. Oncle Jazon
+knew nothing whatever about old violins. He was a natural musician,
+that was all, and flung himself upon his fiddle with the same
+passionate abandon that characterizes a healthy boy's assault when a
+plum pudding is at his mercy. But his fiddle was a Carlo Bergonzi; and
+now let the search be renewed, for the precious instrument was
+certainly still in Vincennes as late as 1819, and there is a vague
+tradition that Governor Whitcomb played on it not long before he died.
+The mark by which it may be identified is the single word "Jazon" cut
+in the back of its neck by Oncle Jazon himself.
+
+When their dance was ended Alice and Beverley followed the others of
+their set out into the open air while a fresh stream of eager dancers
+poured in. Beverley insisted upon wrapping Alice in her mantle of
+unlined beaver skin against the searching winter breath. They did not
+go to the fire, but walked back and forth, chatting until their turn to
+dance should come again, pausing frequently to exchange pleasantries
+with some of the people. Curiously enough both of them had forgotten
+the fact that other young men would be sure to ask Alice for a dance,
+and that more than one pretty creole lass was rightfully expecting a
+giddy turn with the stalwart and handsome Lieutenant Beverley.
+
+Rene de Ronville before long broke rudely into their selfish dream and
+led Alice into the house. This reminded Beverley of his social duty,
+wherefore seeing little Adrienne Bourcier he made a rush and secured
+her at a swoop from the midst of a scrambling circle of mutually
+hindered young men.
+
+"Allons, ma petite!" he cried, quite in the gay tone of the occasion,
+and swung her lightly along with him.
+
+It was like an eagle dancing with a linnet, or a giant with a fairy,
+when the big Lieutenant led out la petite Adrienne, as everybody called
+her. The honor of Beverley's attention sat unappreciated on Adrienne's
+mind, for all her thoughts went with her eyes toward Rene and Alice.
+Nor was Beverley so absorbed in his partner's behalf that he ever for a
+moment willingly lost sight of the floating buff gown, the shining
+brown hair and the beautiful face, which formed, indeed, the center of
+attraction for all eyes.
+
+Father Beret was present, sharing heartily in the merriment of his
+flock. Voices greeted him on all sides with intonations of tender
+respect. The rudest man there was loyal to the kind-hearted priest, and
+would as soon have thought of shooting him as of giving him any but the
+most reverent attention. It is to be noted, however, that their
+understanding of reverence included great freedom and levity not
+especially ecclesiastical in its nature. Father Beret understood the
+conditions around him and had the genius to know what not to hear, what
+not to see; but he never failed when a good word or a fatherly touch
+with his hand seemed worth trying on a sheep that appeared to be
+straying dangerously far from the fold. Upon an occasion like this
+dance at the river house, he was no less the faithful priest because of
+his genial sympathy with the happiness of the young people who looked
+to him for spiritual guidance.
+
+It was some time before Beverley could again secure Alice for a dance,
+and he found it annoying him atrociously to see her smile sweetly on
+some buckskin-clad lout who looked like an Indian and danced like a
+Parisian. He did not greatly enjoy most of his partners; they could not
+appeal to any side of his nature just then. Not that he at all times
+stood too much on his aristocratic traditions, or lacked the virile
+traits common to vigorous and worldly-minded men; but the contrast
+between Alice and the other girls present was somehow an absolute bar
+to a democratic freedom of the sort demanded by the occasion. He met
+Father Beret and passed a few pleasant words with him.
+
+"They have honored your flag, my son, I am glad to see," the priest
+said, pointing with a smile to where, in one corner, the banner that
+bore Alice's name was effectively draped.
+
+Beverley had not noticed it before, and when he presently got
+possession of Alice he asked her to tell him the story of how she
+planted it on the fort, although he had heard it to the last detail
+from Father Beret just a moment ago. They stood together under its
+folds while she naively sketched the scene for him, even down to her
+picturesquely disagreeable interview with Long-Hair, mention of whom
+led up to the story of the Indian's race with the stolen dame jeanne of
+brandy under his arm on that memorable night, and the subsequent
+services performed for him by Father Beret and her, after she and Jean
+had found him in the mud beyond the river.
+
+The dancing went on at a furious pace while they stood there. Now and
+again a youth came to claim her, but she said she was tired and begged
+to rest awhile, smiling so graciously upon each one that his rebuff
+thrilled him as if it had been the most flattering gift of tender
+partiality, while at the same time he suspected that it was all for
+Beverley.
+
+Helm in his most jovial mood was circulating freely among those who
+formed the periphery of the dancing-area; he even ventured a few clumsy
+capers in a cotillion with Madame Godere for partner. She danced well;
+but he, as someone remarked, stumbled all over himself.
+
+There was but one thing to mar the evening's pleasure: some of the men
+drank too much and grew boisterous. A quarrel ended in a noisy but
+harmless fight near one of the fires. M. Roussillon rushed to the spot,
+seized the combatants, tousled them playfully, as if they had been
+children, rubbed their heads together, laughed stormily and so restored
+the equilibrium of temper.
+
+It was late when fathers and mothers in the company began to suggest
+adjournment. Oncle Jazon's elbow was tired and the enthusiasm generated
+by his unrecognized Bergonzi became fitful, while the relaxing crowd
+rapidly encroached upon the space set apart for the dancers. In the
+open lamps suspended here and there the oil was running low, and the
+rag wicks sputtered and winked with their yellow flames.
+
+"Well," said M. Roussillon, coming to where Alice and Beverley stood
+insulated and isolated by their great delight in each other's company,
+"it's time to go home."
+
+Beverley looked at his watch; it was a quarter to three!
+
+Alice also looked at the watch, and saw engraved and enameled on its
+massive case the Beverley crest, but she did not know what it meant.
+There was something of the sort in the back of her locket, she
+remembered with satisfaction.
+
+Just then there was a peculiar stir in the flagging crowd. Someone had
+arrived, a coureur de bois from the north. Where was the commandant?
+the coureur had something important for him.
+
+Beverley heard a remark in a startled voice about the English getting
+ready for a descent upon the Wabash valley. This broke the charm which
+thralled him and sent through his nerves the bracing shock that only a
+soldier can feel when a hint of coming battle reaches him.
+
+Alice saw the flash in his face.
+
+"Where is Captain Helm? I must see him immediately. Excuse me," he
+said, abruptly turning away and looking over the heads of the people;
+"yonder he is, I must go to him."
+
+The coureur de bois, Adolphe Dutremble by name, was just from the head
+waters of the Wabash. He was speaking to Helm when Beverley came up. M.
+Roussillon followed close upon the Lieutenant's heels, as eager as he
+to know what the message amounted to; but Helm took the coureur aside,
+motioning Beverley to join them. M. Roussillon included himself in the
+conference.
+
+After all it was but the gossip of savages that Dutremble communicated;
+still the purport was startling in the extreme. Governor Hamilton, so
+the story ran, had been organizing a large force; he was probably now
+on his way to the portage of the Wabash with a flotilla of batteaux,
+some companies of disciplined soldiers, artillery and a strong body of
+Indians.
+
+Helm listened attentively to Dutremble's lively sketch, then
+cross-questioned him with laconic directness.
+
+"Send Mr. Jazon to me," he said to M. Roussillon, as if speaking to a
+servant.
+
+The master Frenchman went promptly, recognizing Captain Helm's right to
+command, and sympathizing With his unpleasant military predicament if
+the news should prove true.
+
+Oncle Jazon came in a minute, his fiddle and bow clamped under his arm,
+to receive a verbal commission, which sent him with some scouts of his
+own choosing forthwith to the Wabash portage, or far enough to
+ascertain what the English commander was doing.
+
+After the conference Beverley made haste to join Alice; but he found
+that she had gone home.
+
+"One hell of a fix we'll be in if Hamilton comes down here with a good
+force," said Helm.
+
+Beverley felt like retorting that a little forethought, zeal and
+preparation might have lessened the prospective gloom. He had been
+troubled all the time about Helm's utter lack of military precaution.
+True, there was very little material out of which that optimistic
+officer could have formed a body of resistance against the army
+probably at Hamilton's command; but Beverley was young, energetic,
+bellicose, and to him everything seemed possible; he believed in
+vigilance, discipline, activity, dash; he had a great faith in the
+efficacy of enthusiasm.
+
+"We must organize these Frenchmen," he said; "they will make good
+fighters if we can once get them to act as a body. There's no time to
+be lost; but we have time enough in which to do a great deal before
+Hamilton can arrive, if we go at it in earnest."
+
+"Your theory is excellent, Lieutenant, but the practice of it won't be
+worth a damn," Helm replied with perfect good nature. "I'd like to see
+you organize these parly-voos. There ain't a dozen of 'em that wouldn't
+accept the English with open arms. I know 'em. They're good hearted,
+polite and all that; they'll hurrah for the flag; that's easy enough;
+but put 'em to the test and they'll join in with the strongest side,
+see if they don't. Of course there are a few exceptions. There's Jazon,
+he's all right, and I have faith in Bosseron, and Legrace, and young
+Ronville."
+
+"Roussillon--" Beverley began.
+
+"Is much of a blow-hard," Helm interrupted with a laugh. "Barks loud,
+but his biting disposition is probably not vicious."
+
+"He and Father Beret control the whole population at all events," said
+Beverley.
+
+"Yes, and such a population!"
+
+While joining in Captain Helm's laugh at the expense of Vincennes,
+Beverley took leave to indulge a mental reservation in favor of Alice.
+He could not bear to class her with the crowd of noisy, thoughtless,
+mercurial beings whom he heard still singing gay snatches and calling
+to one another from distance to distance, as they strolled homeward in
+groups and pairs. Nor could the impending danger of an enforced
+surrender to the English and Indians drive from his mind her beautiful
+image, while he lay for the rest of the night between sleeping and
+waking on his primitive bed, alternately hearing over again her every
+phrase and laugh, and striving to formulate some definite plan for
+defending the town and fort. His heart was full of her. She had
+surprised his nature and filled it, as with a wonderful, haunting song.
+His youth, his imagination, all that was fresh and spontaneously gentle
+and natural in him, was flooded with the magnetic splendor of her
+beauty. And yet, in his pride (and it was not a false pride, but rather
+a noble regard for his birthright) he vaguely realized how far she was
+from him, how impossible.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE DILEMMA OF CAPTAIN HELM
+
+
+Oncle Jazon, feeling like a fish returned to the water after a long and
+torturing captivity in the open air, plunged into the forest with
+anticipations of lively adventure and made his way toward the Wea
+plains. It was his purpose to get a boat at the village of Ouiatenon
+and pull thence up the Wabash until he could find out what the English
+were doing. He chose for his companions on this dangerous expedition
+two expert coureurs de bois, Dutremble and Jacques Bailoup. Fifty miles
+up the river they fell in with some friendly Indians, well known to
+them all, who were returning from the portage.
+
+The savages informed them that there were no signs of an English
+advance in that quarter. Some of them had been as far as the St. Joseph
+river and to within a short distance of Detroit without seeing a white
+man or hearing of any suspicious movements on the part of Hamilton. So
+back came Oncle Jazon with his pleasing report, much disappointed that
+he had not been able to stir up some sort of trouble.
+
+It was Helm's turn to laugh.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he cried, in a jolly mood, slapping Beverley on
+the shoulder. "I knew mighty well that it was all a big story with
+nothing in it. What on earth would the English be thinking about to
+march an army away off down here only to capture a rotten stockade and
+a lot of gabbling parly-voos?"
+
+Beverley, while he did not feel quite as confident as his chief, was
+not sorry that things looked a little brighter than he had feared they
+would turn out to be. Secretly, and without acknowledging it to
+himself, he was delighted with the life he was living. The Arcadian
+atmosphere of Vincennes clothed him in its mists and dreams. No matter
+what way the weather blew its breath, cold or warm, cloudy or fair,
+rain or snow, the peace in his soul changed not. His nature seemed to
+hold all of its sterner and fiercer traits in abeyance while he
+domiciled himself absolutely within his narrow and monotonous
+environment. Since the dance at the river house a new content, like a
+soft and diffused sweetness, had crept through his blood with a vague,
+tingling sense of joy.
+
+He began to like walking about rather aimlessly in the town's narrow
+streets, with the mud-daubed cabins on either hand. This simple life
+under low, thatched roofs had a charm. When a door was opened he could
+see a fire of logs on the ample hearth shooting its yellow tongues up
+the sooty chimney-throat. Soft creole voices murmured and sang, or
+jangled their petty domestic discords. Women in scant petticoats,
+leggings and moccasins swept snow from the squat verandas, or fed the
+pigs in little sties behind the cabins. Everybody cried cheerily: "Bon
+jour, Monsieur, comment allez-vous?" as he went by, always accompanying
+the verbal salute with a graceful wave of the hand.
+
+When he walked early in the morning a waft of broiling game and
+browning corn scones was abroad. Pots and kettles occupied the hearths
+with glowing coals heaped around and under. Shaggy dogs whined at the
+doors until the mensal remnants were tossed out to them in the front
+yard.
+
+But it was always a glimpse of Alice that must count for everything in
+Beverley's reckonings, albeit he would have strenuously denied it. True
+he went to Roussillon place almost every day, it being a fixed part of
+his well ordered habit, and had a talk with her. Sometimes, when Dame
+Roussillon was very busy and so quite off her guard, they read together
+in a novel, or in certain parts of the odd volume of Montaigne. This
+was done more for the sweetness of disobedience than to enjoy the
+already familiar pages.
+
+Now and again they repeated their fencing bout; but never with the
+result which followed the first. Beverley soon mastered Alice's tricks
+and showed her that, after all, masculine muscle is not to be
+discounted at its own game by even the most wonderful womanly strength
+and suppleness. She struggled bravely to hold her vantage ground once
+gained so easily, but the inevitable was not to be avoided. At last,
+one howling winter day, he disarmed her by the very trick that she had
+shown him. That ended the play and they ran shivering into the house.
+
+"Ah," she cried, "it isn't fair. You are so much bigger than I; you
+have so much longer arms; so much more weight and power. It all counts
+against me! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" She was rosy with the
+exhilarating exercise and the biting of the frosty breeze. Her beauty
+gave forth a new ray.
+
+Deep in her heart she was pleased to have him master her so superbly;
+but as the days passed she never said so, never gave over trying to
+make him feel the touch of her foil. She did not know that her eyes
+were getting through his guard, that her dimples were stabbing his
+heart to its middle.
+
+"You have other advantages," he replied, "which far overbalance my
+greater stature and stronger muscles." Then after a pause he added:
+"After all a girl must be a girl."
+
+Something in his face, something in her heart, startled her so that she
+made a quick little move like that of a restless bird.
+
+"You are beautiful and that makes my eyes and my hand uncertain," he
+went on. "Were I fencing with a man there would be no glamour."
+
+He spoke in English, which he did not often do in conversation with
+her. It was a sign that he was somewhat wrought upon. She followed his
+rapid words with difficulty; but she caught from them a new note of
+feeling. He saw a little pale flare shoot across her face and thought
+she was angry.
+
+"You should not use your dimples to distract my vision," he quickly
+added, with a light laugh. "It would be no worse for me to throw my hat
+in your face!"
+
+His attempt at levity was obviously weak; she looked straight into his
+eyes, with the steady gaze of a simple, earnest nature shocked by a
+current quite strange to it. She did not understand him, and she did.
+Her fine intuition gathered swiftly together a hundred shreds of
+impression received from him during their recent growing intimacy. He
+was a patrician, as she vaguely made him out, a man of wealth, whose
+family was great. He belonged among people of gentle birth and high
+attainments. She magnified him so that he was diffused in her
+imagination, as difficult to comprehend as a mist in the morning
+air--and as beautiful.
+
+"You make fun of me," she said, very deliberately, letting her eyes
+droop; then she looked up again suddenly and continued, with a certain
+naive expression of disappointment gathering in her face. "I have been
+too free with you. Father Beret told me not to forget my dignity when
+in your company. He told me you might misunderstand me. I don't care; I
+shall not fence with you again." She laughed, but there was no joyous
+freedom in the sound.
+
+"Why, Alice--my dear Miss Roussillon, you do me a wrong; I beg a
+thousand pardons if I've hurt you," he cried, stepping nearer to her,
+"and I can never forgive myself. You have somehow misunderstood me, I
+know you have!"
+
+On his part it was exaggerating a mere contact of mutual feelings into
+a dangerous collision. He was as much self-deceived as was she, and he
+made more noise about it.
+
+"It is you who have misunderstood me," she replied, smiling brightly
+now, but with just a faint, pitiful touch of regret, or self-blame
+lingering in her voice. "Father Beret said you would. I did not believe
+him; but--"
+
+"And you shall not believe him," said Beverley. "I have not
+misunderstood you. There has been nothing. You have treated me kindly
+and with beautiful friendliness. You have not done or said a thing that
+Father Beret or anybody else could criticise. And if I have said or
+done the least thing to trouble you I repudiate it--I did not mean it.
+Now you believe me, don't you, Miss Roussillon?"
+
+He seemed to be falling into the habit of speaking to her in English.
+She understood it somewhat imperfectly, especially when in an earnest
+moment he rushed his words together as if they had been soldiers he was
+leading at the charge-step against an enemy. His manner convinced her,
+even though his diction fell short.
+
+"Then we'll talk about something else," she said, laughing naturally
+now, and retreating to a chair by the hearthside. "I want you to tell
+me all about yourself and your family, your home and everything."
+
+She seated herself with an air of conscious aplomb and motioned him to
+take a distant stool.
+
+There was a great heap of dry logs in the fireplace, with pointed
+flames shooting out of its crevices and leaping into the gloomy,
+cave-like throat of the flue. Outside a wind passed heavily across the
+roof and bellowed in the chimney-top.
+
+Beverley drew the stool near Alice, who, with a charred stick, used as
+a poker, was thrusting at the glowing crevices and sending showers of
+sparks aloft.
+
+"Why, there wouldn't be much to tell," he said, glad to feel secure
+again. "Our home is a big old mansion named Beverley Hall on a hill
+among trees, and half surrounded with slave cabins. It overlooks the
+plantation in the valley where a little river goes wandering on its
+way." He was speaking French and she followed him easily now, her eyes
+beginning to fling out again their natural sunny beams of interest. "I
+was born there twenty-six years ago and haven't done much of anything
+since. You see before you, Mademoiselle, a very undistinguished young
+man, who has signally failed to accomplish the dream of his boyhood,
+which was to be a great artist like Raphael or Angelo. Instead of being
+famous I am but a poor Lieutenant in the forces of Virginia."
+
+"You have a mother, father, brothers and sisters?" she interrogated.
+She did not understand his allusion to the great artists of whom she
+knew nothing. She had never before heard of them. She leaned the poker
+against the chimney jamb and turned her face toward him.
+
+"Mother, father, and one sister," he said, "no brothers. We were a
+happy little group. But my sister married and lives in Baltimore. I am
+here. Father and mother are alone in the old house. Sometimes I am
+terribly homesick." He was silent a moment, then added: "But you are
+selfish, you make me do all the telling. Now I want you to give me a
+little of your story, Mademoiselle, beginning as I did, at the first."
+
+"But I can't," she replied with childlike frankness, "for I don't know
+where I was born, nor my parents' names, nor who I am. You see how
+different it is with me. I am called Alice Roussillon, but I suppose
+that my name is Alice Tarleton; it is not certain, however. There is
+very little to help out the theory. Here is all the proof there is. I
+don't know that it is worth anything."
+
+She took off her locket and handed it to him.
+
+He handled it rather indifferently, for he was just then studying the
+fine lines of her face. But in a moment he was interested.
+
+"Tarleton, Tarleton," he repeated. Then he turned the little disc of
+gold over and saw the enameled drawing on the back,--a crest clearly
+outlined.
+
+He started. The crest was quite familiar.
+
+"Where did you get this?" he demanded in English, and with such blunt
+suddenness that she was startled. "Where did it come from?"
+
+"I have always had it."
+
+"Always? It's the Tarleton crest. Do you belong to that family?"
+
+"Indeed I do not know. Papa Roussillon says he thinks I do."
+
+"Well, this is strange and interesting," said Beverley, rather to
+himself than addressing her. He looked from the miniature to the crest
+and back to the miniature again, then at Alice. "I tell you this is
+strange," he repeated with emphasis. "It is exceedingly strange."
+
+Her cheeks flushed quickly under their soft brown and her eyes flashed
+with excitement.
+
+"Yes, I know." Her voice fluttered; her hands were clasped in her lap.
+She leaned toward him eagerly. "It is strange. I've thought about it a
+great deal."
+
+"Alice Tarleton; that is right; Alice is a name of the family. Lady
+Alice Tarleton was the mother of the first Sir Garnett Tarleton who
+came over in the time of Yardley. It's a great family. One of the
+oldest and best in Virginia." He looked at her now with a gaze of
+concentrated interest, under which her eyes fell. "Why, this is
+romantic!" he exclaimed, "absolutely romantic. And you don't know how
+you came by this locket? You don't know who was your father, your
+mother?"
+
+"I do not know anything."
+
+"And what does Monsieur Roussillon know?"
+
+"Just as little."
+
+"But how came he to be taking you and caring for you? He must know how
+he got you, where he got you, of whom he got you? Surely he knows--"
+
+"Oh, I know all that. I was twelve years old when Papa Roussillon took
+me, eight years ago. I had been having a hard life, and but for him I
+must have died. I was a captive among the Indians. He took me and has
+cared for me and taught me. He has been very, very good to me. I love
+him dearly."
+
+"And don't you remember anything at all about when, where, how the
+Indians got you?"
+
+"No." She shook her head and seemed to be trying to recollect
+something. "No, I just can't remember; and yet there has always been
+something like a dream in my mind, which I could not quite get hold of.
+I know that I am not a Catholic. I vaguely remember a sweet woman who
+taught me to pray like this: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be
+Thy name.'"
+
+And Alice went on through the beautiful and perfect prayer, which she
+repeated in English with infinite sweetness and solemnity, her eyes
+uplifted, her hands clasped before her. Beverley could have sworn that
+she was a shining saint, and that he saw an aureole.
+
+"I know," she continued, "that sometime, somewhere, to a very dear
+person I promised that I never, never, never would pray any prayer but
+that. And I remember almost nothing else about that other life, which
+is far off back yonder in the past, I don't know where,--sweet,
+peaceful, shadowy; a dream that I have all but lost from my mind."
+
+Beverley's sympathy was deeply moved. He sat for some minutes looking
+at her without speaking. She, too, was pensive and silent, while the
+fire sputtered and sang, the great logs slowly melting, the flames
+tossing wisps of smoke into the chimney still booming to the wind.
+
+"I know, too, that I am not French," she presently resumed, "but I
+don't know just how I know it. My first words must have been English,
+for I have always dreamed of talking in that language, and my dimmest
+half recollections of the old days are of a large, white house, and a
+soft-voiced black woman, who sang to me in that language the very
+sweetest songs in the world."
+
+It must be borne in mind that all this was told by Alice in her creole
+French, half bookish, half patois, of which no translation can give any
+fair impression.
+
+Beverley listened, as one who hears a clever reader intoning a strange
+and captivating poem. He was charmed. His imagination welcomed the
+story and furnished it with all that it lacked of picturesque
+completeness. In those days it was no uncommon thing for a white child
+to be found among the Indians with not a trace left by which to restore
+it to its people. He had often heard of such a case. But here was Alice
+right before him, the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen,
+telling him the strangest story of all. To his mind it was clear that
+she belonged to the Tarleton family of Virginia. Youth always concludes
+a matter at once. He knew some of the Tarletons; but it was a widely
+scattered family, its members living in almost every colony in America.
+The crest he recognized at a glance by the dragon on the helmet with
+three stars. It was not for a woman to bear; but doubtless it had been
+enameled on the locket merely as a family mark, as was often done in
+America.
+
+"The black woman was your nurse, your mammy," he said. "I know by that
+and by your prayer in English, as well as by your locket, that you are
+of a good old family."
+
+Like most Southerners, he had strong faith in genealogy, and he held at
+his tongue's tip the names of all the old families. The Carters, the
+Blairs, the Fitzhughs, the Hansons, the Randolphs, the Lees, the
+Ludwells, the Joneses, the Beverleys, the Tarletons--a whole catalogue
+of them stretched back in his memory. He knew the coat of arms
+displayed by each house. He could repeat their legends.
+
+"I wish you could tell me more," he went on. "Can't you recollect
+anything further about your early childhood, your first
+impressions--the house, the woman who taught you to pray, the old black
+mammy? Any little thing might be of priceless value as evidence."
+
+Alice shrugged her shoulders after the creole fashion with something of
+her habitual levity of manner, and laughed. His earnestness seemed
+disproportioned to the subject, as she fancied he must view it,
+although to her it had always been something to dream over. It was
+impossible for her to realize, as he did, the importance of details in
+solving a problem like that involved in her past history. Nor could she
+feel the pathos and almost tragic fascination with which her story had
+touched him.
+
+"There is absolutely nothing more to tell," she said. "All my life I
+have tried to remember more, but it's impossible; I can't get any
+further back or call up another thing. There's no use trying. It's all
+like a dream--probably it is one. I do have such dreams. In my sleep I
+can lift myself into the air, just as easy, and fly back to the same
+big white house that I seem to remember. When you told me about your
+home it was like something that I had often seen before. I shall be
+dreaming about it next!"
+
+Beverley cross-questioned her from every possible point of view; he was
+fascinated with the mystery; but she gave him nothing out of which the
+least further light could be drawn. A half-breed woman, it seemed, had
+been her Indian foster-mother; a silent, grave, watchful guardian from
+whom not a hint of disclosure ever fell. She was, moreover, a Christian
+woman, had received her conversion from an English-speaking Protestant
+missionary. She prayed with Alice, thus keeping in the child's mind a
+perfect memory of the Lord's prayer.
+
+"Well," said Beverley at last, "you are more of a mystery to me, the
+longer I know you."
+
+"Then I must grow every day more distasteful to you."
+
+"No, I love mystery."
+
+He went away feeling a new web of interest binding him to this
+inscrutable maiden whose life seemed to him at once so full of idyllic
+happiness and so enshrouded in tantalizing doubt. At the first
+opportunity he frankly questioned M. Roussillon, with no helpful
+result. The big Frenchman told the same meager story. The woman was
+dying in the time of a great epidemic, which killed most of her tribe.
+She gave Alice to M. Roussillon, but told him not a word about her
+ancestry or previous life. That was all.
+
+A wise old man, when he finds himself in a blind alley, no sooner
+touches the terminal wall than he faces about and goes back the way he
+came. Under like circumstances a young man must needs try to batter the
+wall down with his head. Beverley endeavored to break through the web
+of mystery by sheer force. It seemed to him that a vigorous attempt
+could not fail to succeed; but, like the fly in the spider's lines, he
+became more hopelessly bound at every move he made. Moreover against
+his will he was realizing that he could no longer deceive himself about
+Alice. He loved her, and the love was mastering him body and soul. Such
+a confession carries with it into an honest masculine heart a sense of
+contending responsibilities. In Beverley's case the clash was
+profoundly disturbing. And now he clutched the thought that Alice was
+not a mere child of the woods, but a daughter of an old family of
+cavaliers!
+
+With coat buttoned close against the driving wind, he strode toward the
+fort in one of those melodramatic moods to which youth in all climes
+and times is subject. It was like a slap in the face when Captain Helm
+met him at the stockade gate and said:
+
+"Well, sir, you are good at hiding."
+
+"Hiding! what do you mean, Captain Helm?" he demanded, not in the
+mildest tone.
+
+"I mean, sir, that I've been hunting you for an hour and more, over the
+whole of this damned town. The English and Indians are upon us, and
+there's no time for fooling. Where are all the men?"
+
+Beverley comprehended the situation in a second. Helm's face was
+congested with excitement. Some scouts had come in with the news that
+Governor Hamilton, at the head of five or six hundred soldiers and
+Indians, was only three or four miles up the river.
+
+"Where are all the men?" Helm repeated.
+
+"Buffalo hunting, most of them," said Beverley.
+
+"What in hell are they off hunting buffaloes for?" raged the excited
+captain.
+
+"You might go to hell and see," Beverley suggested, and they both
+laughed in sheer masculine contempt of a predicament too grave for
+anything but grim mirth.
+
+What could they do? Even Oncle Jazon and Rene de Ronville were off with
+the hunters. Helm sent for M. Roussillon in the desperate hope that he
+could suggest something; but he lost his head and hustled off to hide
+his money and valuables. Indeed the French people all felt that, so far
+as they were concerned, the chief thing was to save what they had. They
+well knew that it mattered little which of the two masters held over
+them--they must shift for themselves. In their hearts they were true to
+France and America; but France and America could not now protect them
+against Hamilton; therefore it would be like suicide to magnify
+patriotism or any other sentiment objectionable to the English. So they
+acted upon M. Roussillon's advice and offered no resistance when the
+new army approached.
+
+"My poor people are not disloyal to your flag and your cause," said
+good Father Beret next morning to Captain Helm, "but they are
+powerless. Winter is upon us. What would you have us do? This rickety
+fort is not available for defense; the men are nearly all far away on
+the plains. Isn't it the part of prudence and common sense to make the
+best of a desperate situation? Should we resist, the British and their
+savage allies would destroy the town and commit outrages too horrible
+to think about. In this case diplomacy promises much more than a
+hopeless fight against an overwhelming force."
+
+"I'll fight 'em," Helm ground out between his teeth, "if I have to do
+it single-handed and alone! I'll fight 'em till hell freezes over!"
+
+Father Beret smiled grimly, as if he, too, would enjoy a lively
+skirmish on the ice of Tophet, and said:
+
+"I admire your courage, my son. Fighting is perfectly proper upon fair
+occasion. But think of the poor women and children. These old eyes of
+mine have seen some terrible things done by enraged savages. Men can
+die fighting; but their poor wives and daughters--ah, I have seen, I
+have seen!"
+
+Beverley felt a pang of terror shoot through his heart as Father
+Beret's simple words made him think of Alice in connection with an
+Indian massacre.
+
+"Of course, of course it's horrible to think of," said Helm; "but my
+duty is clear, and that flag," he pointed to where la banniere d'Alice
+Roussillon was almost blowing away in the cold wind, "that flag shall
+not come down save in full honor."
+
+His speech sounded preposterously boastful and hollow; but he was
+manfully in earnest; every word came from his brave heart.
+
+Father Beret's grim smile returned, lighting up his strongly marked
+face with the strangest expression imaginable.
+
+"We will get all the women inside the fort," Helm began to say.
+
+"Where the Indians will find them ready penned up and at their mercy,"
+quickly interpolated the priest "That will not do."
+
+"Well, then, what can be done?" Beverley demanded, turning with a
+fierce stare upon Father Beret. "Don't stand there objecting to
+everything, with not a suggestion of your own to offer."
+
+"I know what is best for my people," the old man replied softly, still
+smiling, "I have advised them to stay inside their houses and take no
+part in the military event. It is the only hope of averting an
+indiscriminate massacre, and things worse."
+
+The curt phrase, "things worse," went like a bullet-stroke through
+Beverley's heart. It flashed an awful picture upon his vision. Father
+Beret saw his face whiten and his lips set themselves to resist a great
+emotion.
+
+"Do not be angry with me, my son," he said, laying a hand on the young
+man's arm. "I may be wrong, but I act upon long and convincing
+experience."
+
+"Experience or no experience," Helm exclaimed with an oath, "this fort
+must be manned and defended. I am commanding here!"
+
+"Yes, I recognize your authority," responded the priest in a firm yet
+deferential tone, "and I heartily wish you had a garrison; but where is
+your command, Captain Helm?" Then it was that the doughty Captain let
+loose the accumulated profanity with which he had been for some time
+well-nigh bursting. He tiptoed in order to curse with extremest
+violence. His gestures were threatening. He shook his fists at Father
+Beret, without really meaning offence.
+
+"Where is my garrison, you ask! Yes, and I can tell you. It's where you
+might expect a gang of dad blasted jabbering French good-for-nothings
+to be, off high-gannicking around shooting buffaloes instead of staying
+here and defending their wives, children, homes and country, damn their
+everlasting souls! The few I have in the fort will sneak off, I
+suppose."
+
+"The French gave you this post on easy terms, Captain," blandly
+retorted Father Beret.
+
+"Yes, and they'll hand it over to Hamilton, you think, on the same
+basis," cried Helm, "but I'll show you! I'll show you, Mr. Priest!"
+
+"Pardon me, Captain, the French are loyal to you and to the flag
+yonder. They have sworn it. Time will prove it. But in the present
+desperate dilemma we must choose the safer horn."
+
+Saying this Father Beret turned about and went his way. He was
+chuckling heartily as he passed out of the gate.
+
+"He is right," said Beverley after a few moments of reflection, during
+which he was wholly occupied with Alice, whose terrified face in his
+anticipation appealed to him from the midst of howling savages, smoking
+cabins and mangled victims of lust and massacre. His imagination
+painted the scene with a merciless realism that chilled his blood. All
+the sweet romance fell away from Vincennes.
+
+"Well, sir, right or wrong, your, duty is to obey orders," said Helm
+with brutal severity.
+
+"We had better not quarrel, Captain," Beverley replied. "I have not
+signified any unwillingness to obey your commands. Give them, and you
+will have no cause to grumble."
+
+"Forgive me, old fellow," cried the impulsive commander. "I know you
+are true as steel. I s'pose I'm wound up too tight to be polite. But
+the time is come to do something. Here we are with but five or six
+men--"
+
+He was interrupted by the arrival of two more half-breed scouts.
+
+Only three miles away was a large flotilla of boats and canoes with
+cannon, a force of Indians on land and the British flag flying,--that
+was the report.
+
+"They are moving rapidly," said the spokesman, "and will be here very
+soon. They are at least six hundred strong, all well armed."
+
+"Push that gun to the gate, and load it to the muzzle, Lieutenant
+Beverley," Helm ordered with admirable firmness, the purple flush in
+his face giving way to a grayish pallor. "We are going to die right
+here, or have the honors of war."
+
+Beverley obeyed without a word. He even loaded two guns instead of
+one--charging each so heavily that the last wad looked as if ready to
+leap from the grimy mouth.
+
+Helm had already begun, on receiving the first report, a hasty letter
+to Colonel Clark at Kaskaskia. He now added a few words and at the last
+moment sent it out by a trusted man, who was promptly captured by
+Hamilton's advance guard. The missive, evidently written in
+installments during the slow approach of the British, is still in the
+Canadian archives, and runs thus:
+
+"Dear Sir--At this time there is an army within three miles of this
+place; I heard of their coming several days beforehand. I sent spies to
+find the certainty--the spies being taken prisoner I never got
+intelligence till they got within three miles of town. As I had called
+the militia and had all assurances of their integrity I ordered at the
+firing of a cannon every man to appear, but I saw but few. Captain
+Buseron behaved much to his honor and credit, but I doubt the conduct
+of a certain gent. Excuse haste, as the army is in sight. My
+determination is to defend the garrison, (sic) though I have but
+twenty-one men but what has left me. I refer you to Mr. Wmes (sic) for
+the rest. The army is within three hundred yards of the village. You
+must think how I feel; not four men that I really depend upon; but am
+determined to act brave--think of my condition. I know it is out of my
+power to defend the town, as not one of the militia will take arms,
+though before sight of the army no braver men. There is a flag at a
+small distance, I must conclude.
+
+"Your humble servant,
+
+"Leo'd Helm. Must stop."
+
+"To Colonel Clark."
+
+Having completed this task, the letter shows under what a nervous
+strain, Helm turned to his lieutenant and said:
+
+"Fire a swivel with a blank charge. We'll give these weak-kneed
+parly-voos one more call to duty. Of course not a frog-eater of them
+all will come. But I said that a gun should be the signal. Possibly
+they didn't hear the first one, the damned, deaf, cowardly hounds!"
+
+Beverley wheeled forth the swivel and rammed a charge of powder home.
+But when he fired it, the effect was far from what it should have been.
+Instead of calling in a fresh body of militia, it actually drove out
+the few who up to that moment had remained as a garrison; so that
+Captain Helm and his Lieutenant found themselves quite alone in the
+fort, while out before the gate, deployed in fine open order, a strong
+line of British soldiers approached with sturdy steps, led by a tall,
+erect, ruddy-faced young officer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE HONORS OF WAR
+
+
+Gaspard Roussillon was thoroughly acquainted with savage warfare, and
+he knew all the pacific means so successfully and so long used by
+French missionaries and traders to control savage character; but the
+emergency now upon him was startling. It confused him. The fact that he
+had taken a solemn oath of allegiance to the American government could
+have been pushed aside lightly enough upon pressing occasion, but he
+knew that certain confidential agents left in Vincennes by Governor
+Abbott had, upon the arrival of Helm, gone to Detroit, and of course
+they had carried thither a full report of all that happened in the
+church of St. Xavier, when Father Gibault called the people together,
+and at the fort, when the British flag was hauled down and la banniere
+d'Alice Roussillon run up in its place. His expansive imagination did
+full credit to itself in exaggerating the importance of his part in
+handing the post over to the rebels. And what would Hamilton think of
+this? Would he consider it treason? The question certainly bore a
+tragic suggestion.
+
+M. Roussillon lacked everything of being a coward, and treachery had no
+rightful place in his nature. He was, however, so in the habit of
+fighting windmills and making mountains of molehills that he could not
+at first glance see any sudden presentment with a normal vision. He had
+no love for Englishmen and he did like Americans, but he naturally
+thought that Helm's talk of fighting Hamilton was, as his own would
+have been in a like case, talk and nothing more. The fort could not
+hold out an hour, he well knew. Then what? Ah, he but too well realized
+the result.
+
+Resistance would inflame the English soldiers and madden the Indians.
+There would be a massacre, and the belts of savages would sag with
+bloody scalps. He shrugged his shoulders and felt a chill creep up his
+back.
+
+The first thing M. Roussillon did was to see Father Beret and take
+counsel of him; then he hurried home to dig a great pit under his
+kitchen floor in which he buried many bales of fur and all his most
+valuable things. He worked like a giant beaver all night long. Meantime
+Father Beret went about over the town quietly notifying the inhabitants
+to remain in their houses until after the fort should surrender, which
+he was sure would happen the next day.
+
+"You will be perfectly safe, my children," he said to them. "No harm
+can come to you if you follow my directions."
+
+Relying implicitly upon him, they scrupulously obeyed in every
+particular.
+
+He did not think it necessary to call at Roussillon place, having
+already given M. Roussillon the best advice he could command.
+
+Just at the earliest break of day, while yet the gloom of night
+scarcely felt the sun's approach, a huge figure made haste along the
+narrow streets in the northern part of the town. If any person had been
+looking out through the little holes, called windows, in those silent
+and rayless huts, it would have been easy to recognize M. Roussillon by
+his stature and his gait, dimly outlined as he was. A thought, which
+seemed to him an inspiration of genius, had taken possession of him and
+was leading him, as if by the nose, straight away to Hamilton's lines.
+He was freighted with eloquence for the ear of that commander, and as
+he strode along facing the crisp morning air he was rehearsing under
+his breath, emphasizing his periods in tragic whispers with sweeping
+gestures and liberal facial contortions. So absorbed was he in his
+oratorical soliloquy that he forgot due military precaution and ran
+plump into the face of a savage picket guard who, without respect for
+the great M. Roussillon's dignity, sprang up before him, grunted
+cavernously, flourished a tomahawk and spoke in excellent and
+exceedingly guttural Indian:
+
+"Wah, surrender!"
+
+It is probable that no man ever complied with a modest request in a
+more docile spirit than did M. Roussillon upon that occasion. In fact
+his promptness must have been admirable, for the savage grunted
+approval and straightway conducted him to Hamilton's headquarters on a
+batteau in the river.
+
+The British commander, a hale man of sandy complexion and probably
+under middle age, was in no very pleasant humor. Some of his orders had
+been misunderstood by the chief of his Indian allies, so that a
+premature exposure of his approach had been made to the enemy.
+
+"Well, sir, who are you?" he gruffly demanded, when M. Roussillon
+loomed before him.
+
+"I am Gaspard Roussillon, the Mayor of Vincennes," was the lofty reply.
+"I have come to announce to you officially that my people greet you
+loyally and that my town is freely at your command." He felt as
+important as if his statements had been true.
+
+"Humph, that's it, is it? Well, Mr. Mayor, you have my congratulations,
+but I should prefer seeing the military commander and accepting his
+surrender. What account can you give me of the American forces, their
+numbers and condition?"
+
+M. Roussillon winced, inwardly at least, under Hamilton's very
+undeferential air and style of address. It piqued him cruelly to be
+treated as a person without the slightest claim to respect. He somehow
+forgot the rolling and rhythmical eloquence prepared for the occasion.
+
+"The American commander naturally would not confide in me, Monsieur le
+Gouverneur, not at all; we are not very friendly; he ousted me from
+office, he offended me--" he was coughing and stammering.
+
+"Oh, the devil! what do I care? Answer my question, sir," Hamilton
+gruffly interrupted. "Tell me the number of American troops at the
+fort, sir."
+
+"I don't know exactly. I have not had admittance to the fort. I might
+be deceived as to numbers; but they're strong, I believe, Monsieur le
+Gouverneur, at least they make a great show and much noise."
+
+Hamilton eyed the huge bulk before him for a moment, then turning to a
+subaltern said:
+
+"Place this fellow under guard and see that he doesn't get away. Send
+word immediately to Captain Farnsworth that I wish to see him at once."
+
+The interview thereupon closed abruptly. Hamilton's emissaries had
+given him a detailed account of M. Roussillon's share in submitting
+Vincennes to rebel dominion, and he was not in the least inclined
+toward treating him graciously.
+
+"I would suggest to you, Monsieur le Gouverneur, that my official
+position demands--" M. Roussillon began; but he was fastened upon by
+two guards, who roughly hustled him aft and bound him so rigidly that
+he could scarcely move finger or toe.
+
+Hamilton smiled coldly and turned to give some orders to a stalwart,
+ruddy young officer who in a canoe had just rowed alongside the batteau.
+
+"Captain Farnsworth," he said, acknowledging the military salute, "you
+will take fifty men and make everything ready for a reconnaissance in
+the direction of the fort. We will move down the river immediately and
+choose a place to land. Move lively, we have no time to lose."
+
+In the meantime Beverley slipped away from the fort and made a hurried
+call upon Alice at Roussillon place. There was not much they could say
+to each other during the few moments at command. Alice showed very
+little excitement; her past experience had fortified her against the
+alarms of frontier life; but she understood and perfectly appreciated
+the situation.
+
+"What are you going to do?" Beverley demanded in sheer despair. He was
+not able to see any gleam of hope out of the blackness which had fallen
+around him and into his soul.
+
+"What shall you do?" he repeated.
+
+"Take the chances of war," she said, smiling gravely. "It will all come
+out well, no doubt."
+
+"I hope so, but--but I fear not."
+
+His face was gray with trouble. "Helm is determined to fight, and that
+means--"
+
+"Good!" she interrupted with spirit. "I am so glad of that. I wish I
+could go to help him! If I were a man I'd love to fight! I think it's
+just delightful."
+
+"But it is reckless bravado; it is worse than foolishness," said
+Beverley, not feeling her mood. "What can two or three men do against
+an army?"
+
+"Fight and die like men," she replied, her whole countenance lighting
+up. "Be heroic!"
+
+"We will do that, of course; we--I do not fear death; but you--you--"
+His voice choked him.
+
+A gun shot rang out clear in the distance, and he did not finish
+speaking.
+
+"That's probably the beginning," he added in a moment, extending both
+hands to her. "Good bye. I must hurry to the fort. Good bye."
+
+She drew a quick breath and turned so white that her look struck him
+like a sudden and hard blow. He stood for a second, his arms at full
+reach, then:
+
+"My God, Alice, I cannot, cannot leave you!" he cried, his voice again
+breaking huskily.
+
+She made a little movement, as if to take hold of his hands: but in an
+instant she stepped back a pace and said:
+
+"Don't fear about me. I can take care of myself. I'm all right. You'd
+better return to the fort as quickly as you can. It is your country,
+your flag, not me, that you must think of now."
+
+She folded her arms and stood boldly erect.
+
+Never before, in all his life, had he felt such a rebuke. He gave her a
+straight, strong look in the eyes.
+
+"You are right, Alice." he cried, and rushed from the house to the fort.
+
+She held her rigid attitude for a little while after she heard him shut
+the front gate of the yard so forcibly that it broke in pieces, then
+she flung her arms wide, as if to clasp something, and ran to the door;
+but Beverley was out of sight. She turned and dropped into a chair.
+Jean came to her out of the next room. His queer little face was pale
+and pinched; but his jaw was set with the expression of one who has
+known danger and can meet it somehow.
+
+"Are they going to scalp us?" he half whispered presently, with a
+shuddering lift of his distorted shoulders.
+
+Her face was buried in her hands and she did not answer. Childlike he
+turned from one question to another inconsequently.
+
+"Where did Papa Roussillon go to?" he next inquired. "Is he going to
+fight?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"They'll tear down the fort, won't they?"
+
+If she heard him she did not make any sign.
+
+"They'll kill the Captain and Lieutenant and get the fine flag that you
+set so high on the fort, won't they, Alice?"
+
+She lifted her head and gave the cowering hunchback such a stare that
+he shut his eyes and put up a hand, as if afraid of her. Then she
+impulsively took his little misshapen form in her arms and hugged it
+passionately. Her bright hair fell all over him, almost hiding him.
+Madame Roussillon was lying on a bed in an adjoining room moaning
+diligently, at intervals handling her rosary and repeating a prayer.
+The whole town was silent outside.
+
+"Why don't you go get the pretty flag down and hide it before they
+come?" Jean murmured from within the silken meshes of Alice's hair.
+
+In his small mind the gaudy banner was the most beautiful of all
+things. Every day since it was set up he had gone to gaze at it as it
+fluttered against the sky. The men had frequently said in his presence
+that the enemy would take it down if they captured the fort.
+
+Alice heard his inquisitive voice; but it seemed to come from far off;
+his words were a part of the strange, wild swirl in her bosom.
+Beverley's look, as he turned and left her, now shook every chord of
+her being. He had gone to his death at her command. How strong and true
+and brave he was! In her imagination she saw the flag above him, saw
+him die like a panther at bay, saw the gay rag snatched down and torn
+to shreds by savage hands. It was the tragedy of a single moment,
+enacted in a flashlight of anticipation.
+
+She released Jean so suddenly that he fell to the floor. She remembered
+what she had said to Beverley on the night of the dance when they were
+standing under the flag.
+
+"You made it and set it up," he lightly remarked; "you must see that no
+enemy ever gets possession of it, especially the English."
+
+"I'll take it down and hide it when there's danger of that," she said
+in the same spirit.
+
+And now she stood there looking at Jean, without seeing him, and
+repeated the words under her breath.
+
+"I'll take it down and hide it. They shan't have it."
+
+Madame Roussillon began to call from the other room in a loud,
+complaining voice; but Alice gave no heed to her querulous demands.
+
+"Stay here, Jean, and take care of Mama Roussillon," she presently said
+to the hunchback. "I am going out; I'll be back soon; don't you dare
+leave the house while I'm gone; do you hear?"
+
+She did not wait for his answer; but snatching a hood-like fur cap from
+a peg on the wall, she put it on and hastily left the house.
+
+Down at the fort Helm and Beverley were making ready to resist
+Hamilton's attack, which they knew would not be long deferred. The two
+heavily charged cannon were planted so as to cover the space in front
+of the gate, and some loaded muskets were ranged near by ready for use.
+
+"We'll give them one hell of a blast," growled the Captain, "before
+they overpower us."
+
+Beverley made no response in words; but he was preparing a bit of
+tinder on the end of a stick with which to fire the cannon. Not far
+away a little heap of logs was burning in the fort's area.
+
+The British officer, already mentioned as at the head of the line
+advancing diagonally from the river's bank, halted his men at a
+distance of three hundred yards from the fort, and seemed to be taking
+a deliberately careful survey of what was before him.
+
+"Let 'em come a little nearer, Lieutenant," said Helm, his jaw setting
+itself like a lion's. "When we shoot we want to hit."
+
+He stooped and squinted along his gun.
+
+"When they get to that weedy spot out yonder," he added, "just opposite
+the little rise in the river bank, we'll turn loose on 'em."
+
+Beverley had arranged his primitive match to suit his fancy, and for
+probably the twentieth time looked critically to the powder in the
+beveled touch-hole of his old cannon. He and Helm were facing the
+enemy, with their backs to the main area of the stockade, when a well
+known voice attracted their attention to the rear.
+
+"Any room for a feller o' my size in this here crowded place?" it
+demanded in a cracked but cheerful tenor. "I'm kind o' outen breath a
+runnin' to git here."
+
+They turned about. It was Oncle Jazon with his long rifle on his
+shoulder and wearing a very important air. He spoke in English, using
+the backwoods lingo with the ease of long practice.
+
+"As I's a comin' in f'om a huntin' I tuck notice 'at somepin' was up. I
+see a lot o' boats on the river an' some fellers wi' guns a scootin'
+around, so I jes' slipped by 'em all an' come in the back way. They's
+plenty of 'em, I tell you what! I can't shoot much, but I tuck one
+chance at a buck Indian out yander and jes' happened to hit 'im in the
+lef' eye. He was one of the gang 'at scalped me down yander in
+Kaintuck."
+
+The greasy old sinner looked as if he had not been washed since he was
+born. He glanced about with furtive, shifty eyes, grimaced and winked,
+after the manner of an animal just waking from a lazy nap.
+
+"Where's the rest o' the fighters?" he demanded quizzically, lolling
+out his tongue and peeping past Helm so as to get a glimpse of the
+English line. "Where's yer garrison? Have they all gone to breakfas'?"
+
+The last question set Helm off again cursing and swearing in the most
+melodramatic rage.
+
+Oncle Jazon turned to Beverley and said in rapid French: "Surely the
+man's not going to fight those fellows yonder?"
+
+Beverley nodded rather gloomily.
+
+"Well," added the old man, fingering his rifle's stock and taking
+another glance through the gate, "I can't shoot wo'th a cent, bein'
+sort o' nervous like; but I'll stan' by ye awhile, jes' for luck. I
+might accidentally hit one of 'em."
+
+When a man is truly brave himself there is nothing that touches him
+like an exhibition of absolutely unselfish gameness in another. A rush
+of admiration for Oncle Jazon made Beverley feel like hugging him.
+
+Meantime the young British officer showed a flag of truce, and, with a
+file of men, separated himself from the line, now stationary, and
+approached the stockade. At a hundred yards he halted the file and came
+on alone, waving the white clout. He boldly advanced to within easy
+speaking distance and shouted:
+
+"I demand the surrender of this fort."
+
+"Well, you'll not get it, young man," roared Helm, his profanity well
+mixed in with the words, "not while there's a man of us left!"
+
+"Ye'd better use sof' soap on 'im, Cap'n," said Oncle Jazon in English,
+"cussin' won't do no good." While he spoke he rubbed the doughty
+Captain's arm and then patted it gently.
+
+Helm, who was not half as excited as he pretended to be, knew that
+Oncle Jazon's remark was the very essence of wisdom; but he was not yet
+ready for the diplomatic language which the old trooper called "soft
+soap."
+
+"Are you the British commander?" he demanded.
+
+"No," said the officer, "but I speak for him."
+
+"Not to me by a damned sight, sir. Tell your commander that I will hear
+what he has to say from his own mouth. No understrapper will be
+recognized by me."
+
+That ended the conference. The young officer, evidently indignant,
+strode back to his line, and an hour later Hamilton himself demanded
+the unconditional surrender of the fort and garrison.
+
+"Fight for it," Helm stormed forth. "We are soldiers."
+
+Hamilton held a confab with his officers, while his forces, under cover
+of the town's cabins, were deploying so as to form a half circle about
+the stockade. Some artillery appeared and was planted directly opposite
+the gate, not three hundred yards distant. One blast of that battery
+would, as Helm well knew, level a large part of the stockade.
+
+"S'posin' I hev' a cannon, too, seein' it's the fashion," said Oncle
+Jazon. "I can't shoot much, but I might skeer 'em. This little one'll
+do me."
+
+He set his rifle against the wall and with Beverley's help rolled one
+of the swivels alongside the guns already in position.
+
+In a few minutes Hamilton returned under the white flag and shouted:
+
+"Upon what terms will you surrender?"
+
+"All the honors of war," Helm firmly replied. "It's that or fight, and
+I don't care a damn which!"
+
+Hamilton half turned away, as if done with the parley, then facing the
+fort again, said:
+
+"Very well, sir, haul down your flag."
+
+Helm was dumfounded at this prompt acceptance of his terms. Indeed the
+incident is unique in history.
+
+As Hamilton spoke he very naturally glanced up to where la banniere
+d'Alice Roussillon waved brilliantly. Someone stood beside it on the
+dilapidated roof of the old blockhouse, and was already taking it from
+its place. His aid, Captain Farnsworth, saw this, and the vision made
+his heart draw in a strong, hot flood It was a girl in short skirts and
+moccasins, with a fur hood on her head, her face, thrillingly
+beautiful, set around with fluffs of wind-blown brown-gold hair.
+Farnsworth was too young to be critical and too old to let his eyes
+deceive him. Every detail of the fine sketch, with its steel-blue
+background of sky, flashed into his mind, sharp-cut as a cameo.
+Involuntarily he took off his hat.
+
+Alice had come in by way of the postern. She mounted to the roof
+unobserved, and made her way to the flag, just at the moment when Helm,
+glad at heart to accept the easiest way out of a tight place, asked
+Oncle Jazon to lower it.
+
+Beverley was thinking of Alice, and when he looked up he could scarcely
+realize that he saw her; but the whole situation was plain the instant
+she snatched the staff from its place; for he, too, recollected what
+she had said at the river house. The memory and the present scene
+blended perfectly during the fleeting instant that she was visible. He
+saw that Alice was smiling somewhat as in her most mischievous moods,
+and when she jerked the staff from its fastening she lifted it high and
+waved it once, twice, thrice defiantly toward the British lines, then
+fled down the ragged roof-slope with it and disappeared. The vision
+remained in Beverley's eyes forever afterward. The English troops,
+thinking that the flag was taken down in token of surrender, broke into
+a wild tumult of shouting.
+
+Oncle Jazon intuitively understood just what Alice was doing, for he
+knew her nature and could read her face. His blood effervesced in an
+instant.
+
+"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton! Vive la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!" he
+screamed, waving his disreputable cap round his scalpless head. "Hurrah
+for George Washington! Hurrah for Alice Roussillon's flag!"
+
+It was all over soon. Helm surrendered himself and Beverley with full
+honors. As for Oncle Jazon, he disappeared at the critical moment. It
+was not just to his mind to be a prisoner of war, especially under
+existing conditions; for Hamilton's Indian allies had some old warpath
+scores to settle with him dating back to the days when he and Simon
+Kenton were comrades in Kentucky.
+
+When Alice snatched the banner and descended with it to the ground, she
+ran swiftly out through the postern, as she had once before done, and
+sped along under cover of the low bluff or swell, which, terrace-like,
+bounded the flat "bottom" lands southward of the stockade. She kept on
+until she reached a point opposite Father Beret's hut, to which she
+then ran, the flag streaming bravely behind her in the wind, her heart
+beating time to her steps.
+
+It was plainly a great surprise to Father Beret, who looked up from his
+prayer when she rushed in, making a startling clatter, the loose
+puncheons shaking together under her reckless feet.
+
+"Oh, Father, here it is! Hide it, hide it, quick!"
+
+She thrust the flag toward him.
+
+"They shall not have it! They shall never have it!"
+
+He opened wide his shrewd, kindly eyes; but did not fairly comprehend
+her meaning.
+
+She was panting, half laughing, half crying. Her hair, wildly
+disheveled, hung in glorious masses over her shoulders. Her face beamed
+triumphantly.
+
+"They are taking the fort," she breathlessly added, again urging the
+flag upon him, "they're going in, but I got this and ran away with it.
+Hide it, Father, hide it, quick, quick, before they come!"
+
+The daring light in her eyes, the witching play of her dimples, the
+madcap air intensified by her attitude and the excitement of the
+violent exercise just ended--something compounded of all these and
+more--affected the good priest strangely. Involuntarily he crossed
+himself, as if against a dangerous charm.
+
+"Mon Dieu, Father Beret," she exclaimed with impatience, "haven't you a
+grain of sense left? Take this flag and hide it, I tell you! Don't stay
+there gazing and blinking. Here, quick! They saw me take it, they may
+be following me. Hurry, hide it somewhere!"
+
+He comprehended now, rising from his knees with a queer smile
+broadening on his face. She put the banner into his hands and gave him
+a gentle push.
+
+"Hide it, I tell you, hide it, you dear old goose!"
+
+Without sneaking he turned the staff over and over in his hand, until
+the flag was closely wrapped around it, then stooping he lifted a
+puncheon and with it covered the gay roll from sight.
+
+Alice caught him in her arms and kissed him vigorously on the cheek.
+Her warm lips made the spot tingle.
+
+"Don't you dare to let any person have it! It's the flag of George
+Washington."
+
+She gave him a strong squeeze.
+
+He pushed her from him with both hands and hastily crossed himself; but
+his eyes were laughing.
+
+"You ought to have seen me; I waved the flag at them--at the
+English--and one young officer took off his hat to me! Oh, Father
+Beret, it was like what is in a novel. They'll get the fort, but not
+the banner! Not the banner! I've saved it, I've saved it!"
+
+Her enthusiasm gave a splendor to her countenance, heightening its
+riches of color and somehow adding to its natural girlish expression an
+audacious sweetness. The triumphant success of her undertaking lent the
+dignity of conscious power to her look, a dignity which always sits
+well upon a young and somewhat immaturely beautiful face.
+
+Father Beret could not resist her fervid eloquence, and he could not
+run away from her or stop up his ears while she went on. So he had to
+laugh when she said:
+
+"Oh, if you had seen it all you would have enjoyed it. There was Oncle
+Jazon squatting behind the little swivel, and there were Captain Helm
+and Lieutenant Beverley holding their burning sticks over the big
+cannon ready to shoot--all of them so intent that they didn't see
+me--and yonder came the English officer and his army against the three.
+When they got close to the gate the officer called out: 'Surrender!'
+and then Captain Helm yelled back: 'Damned if I do! Come another step
+and I'll blow you all to hell in a second!' I was mightily in hopes
+that they'd come on; I wanted to see a cannon ball hit that English
+commander right in the face; he looked so arrogant."
+
+Father Beret shook his head and tried to look disapproving and solemn.
+
+Meantime down at the fort Hamilton was demanding the flag. He had seen
+Alice take it down, and supposed that it was lowered officially and
+would be turned over to him. Now he wanted to handle it as the best
+token of his bloodless but important victory.
+
+"I didn't order the flag down until after I had accepted your terms,"
+said Helm, "and when my man started to obey, we saw a young lady snatch
+it and run away with it."
+
+"Who was the girl?"
+
+"I do not inform on women," said Helm.
+
+Hamilton smiled grimly, with a vexed look in his eyes, then turned to
+Captain Farnsworth and ordered him to bring up M. Roussillon, who, when
+he appeared, still had his hands tied together.
+
+"Tell me the name of the young woman who carried away the flag from the
+fort. You saw her, you know every soul in this town. Who was it, sir?"
+
+It was a hard question for M. Roussillon to answer. Although his
+humiliating captivity had somewhat cowed him, still his love for Alice
+made it impossible for him to give the information demanded by
+Hamilton. He choked and stammered, but finally managed to say:
+
+"I assure you that I don't know--I didn't look--I didn't see--It was
+too far off for me to--I was some-what excited--I--"
+
+"Take him away. Keep him securely bound," said Hamilton. "Confine him.
+We'll see how long it will take to refresh his mind. We'll puncture the
+big windbag."
+
+While this curt scene was passing, the flag of Great Britain rose over
+the fort to the lusty cheering of the victorious soldiers.
+
+Hamilton treated Helm and Beverley with extreme courtesy. He was a
+soldier, gruff, unscrupulous and cruel to a degree; but he could not
+help admiring the daring behavior of these two officers who had wrung
+from him the best terms of surrender. He gave them full liberty, on
+parole of honor not to attempt escape or to aid in any way an enemy
+against him while they were prisoners.
+
+Nor was it long before Helm's genial and sociable disposition won the
+Englishman's respect and confidence to such an extent that the two
+became almost inseparable companions, playing cards, brewing toddies,
+telling stories, and even shooting deer in the woods together, as if
+they had always been the best of friends.
+
+Hamilton did not permit his savage allies to enter the town, and he
+immediately required the French inhabitants to swear allegiance to
+Great Britain, which they did with apparent heartiness, all save M.
+Roussillon, who was kept in close confinement and bound like a felon,
+chafing lugubriously and wearing the air of a martyr. His prison was a
+little log pen in one corner of the stockade, much open to the weather,
+its gaping cracks giving him a dreary view of the frozen landscape
+through which the Wabash flowed in a broad steel-gray current. Helm,
+who really liked him, tried in vain to procure his release; but
+Hamilton was inexorable on account of what he regarded as duplicity in
+M. Roussillon's conduct.
+
+"No, I'll let him reflect," he said; "there's nothing like a little
+tyranny to break up a bad case of self-importance. He'll soon find out
+that he has over-rated himself!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+M. ROUSSILLON ENTERTAINS COLONEL HAMILTON
+
+
+A day or two after the arrival of Hamilton the absent garrison of
+buffalo hunters straggled back to Vincennes and were duly sworn to
+demean themselves as lawful subjects of Great Britain. Rene de Ronville
+was among the first to take the oath, and it promptly followed that
+Hamilton ordered him pressed into service as a wood-chopper and
+log-hauler during the erection of a new blockhouse, large barracks and
+the making of some extensive repairs of the stockade. Nothing could
+have been more humiliating to the proud young Frenchman. Every day he
+had to report bright and early to a burly Irish Corporal and be ordered
+about, as if he had been a slave, cursed at, threatened and forced to
+work until his hands were blistered and his muscles sore. The bitterest
+part of it all was that he had to trudge past both Roussillon place and
+the Bourcier cabin with the eyes of Alice and Adrienne upon him.
+
+Hamilton did not forget M. Roussillon in this connection. The giant
+orator soon found himself face to face with a greater trial even than
+Rene's. He was calmly told by the English commander that he could
+choose between death and telling who it was that stole the flag.
+
+"I'll have you shot, sir, to-morrow morning if you prevaricate about
+this thing any longer," said Hamilton, with a right deadly strain in
+his voice. "You told me that you knew every man, woman and child in
+Vincennes at sight. I know that you saw that girl take the flag--lying
+does not serve your turn. I give you until this evening to tell me who
+she is; if you fail, you die at sunrise to-morrow."
+
+In fact, it may be that Hamilton did not really purpose to carry out
+this blood-thirsty threat; most probably he relied upon M. Roussillon's
+imagination to torture him successfully; but the effect, as time
+proved, could not be accurately foreseen.
+
+Captain Farnsworth had energy enough for a dozen ordinary men. Before
+he had been in Vincennes twelve hours he had seen every nook and corner
+of its surface. Nor was his activity due altogether to military ardor,
+although he never let pass an opportunity to serve the best interests
+of his commander; all the while his mind was on the strikingly
+beautiful girl whose saucy countenance had so dazzled him from the
+roof-top of the fort, what time she wrenched away the rebel flag.
+
+"I'll find her, high or low," he thought, "for I never could fail to
+recognize that face. She's a trump."
+
+It was not in Alice's nature to hide from the English. They had held
+the town and fort before Helm came, and she had not found them
+troublesome under Abbott. She did not know that M. Roussillon was a
+prisoner, the family taking it for granted that he had gone away to
+avoid the English. Nor was she aware that Hamilton felt so keenly the
+disappearance of the flag. What she did know, and it gladdened her
+greatly, was that Beverley had been well treated by his captor. With
+this in her heart she went about Roussillon place singing merry
+snatches of Creole songs; and when at the gate, which still hung
+lop-sided on account of Beverley's force in shutting it, she came
+unexpectedly face to face with Captain Farnsworth, there was no great
+surprise on her part.
+
+He lifted his hat and bowed very politely; but a bold smile broke over
+his somewhat ruddy face. He spoke in French, but in a drawling tone and
+with a bad accent:
+
+"How do you do, Mademoiselle; I am right glad to see you again."
+
+Alice drew back a pace or two. She was quick to understand his
+allusion, and she shrank from him, fearing that he was going to inquire
+about the flag.
+
+"Don't be afraid," he laughed. "I am not so dangerous. I never did hurt
+a girl in all my life. In fact, I am fond of them when they're nice."
+
+"I am not in the least afraid," she replied, assuming an air of
+absolute dismissal, "and you don't look a bit ferocious, Monsieur. You
+may pass on, if you please."
+
+He flushed and bit his lip, probably to keep back some hasty retort,
+and thought rapidly for a moment. She looked straight at him with eyes
+that stirred and dazzled him. He was handsome in a coarse way, like a
+fine young animal, well groomed, well fed, magnetic, forceful; but his
+boldness, being of a sort to which she had not been accustomed,
+disturbed her vaguely and strangely.
+
+"Suppose that I don't pass on?" he presently ventured, with just a
+suspicion of insolence in his attitude, but laughing until he showed
+teeth of remarkable beauty and whiteness. "Suppose that I should wish
+to have a little chat with you, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"I have been told that there are men in the world who think themselves
+handsome, and clever, and brilliant, when in fact they are but
+conceited simpletons," she remarked, rather indifferently, muffling
+herself in her fur wrap. "You certainly would be a fairly good
+hitching-post for our horses if you never moved." Then she laughed out
+of the depth of her hood, a perfectly merry laugh, but not in the least
+flattering to Captain Farnsworth's vanity. He felt the scorn that it
+conveyed.
+
+His face grew redder, while a flash from hers made him wish that he had
+been more gracious in his deportment. Here, to his surprise, was not a
+mere creole girl of the wild frontier.
+
+Her superiority struck him with the force of a captivating revelation,
+under the light of which he blinked and winced.
+
+She laid a shapely hand on the broken gate and pushed it open.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle;" his manner softened as he spoke; "I
+beg your pardon; but I came to speak to you about the flag--the flag
+you took away from the fort."
+
+She had been half expecting this; but she was quite unprepared, and in
+spite of all she could do showed embarrassment.
+
+"I have come to get the flag; if you will kindly bring it to me, or
+tell me where it is I--"
+
+She quickly found words to interrupt him with, and at the same time by
+a great effort pulled herself together.
+
+"You have come to the wrong place," she flung in. "I assure you that I
+haven't the flag."
+
+"You took it down, Mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh, did I?"
+
+"With bewitching grace you did, Mademoiselle. I saw and admired. Will
+you fetch it, please?"
+
+"Indeed I won't."
+
+The finality in her voice belied her face, which beamed without a ray
+of stubbornness or perversity. He did not know how to interpret her;
+but he felt that he had begun wrong. He half regretted that he had
+begun at all.
+
+"More depends upon returning that flag than you are probably aware of,"
+he presently said in a more serious tone. "In fact, the life of one of
+your townsmen, and a person of some importance here I believe, will
+surely be saved by it. You'd better consider, Mademoiselle. You
+wouldn't like to cause the death of a man."
+
+She did not fairly grasp the purport of his words; yet the change in
+his manner, and the fact that he turned from French to English in
+making the statement, aroused a sudden feeling of dread or dark
+apprehension in her breast. The first distinct thought was of
+Beverley--that some deadly danger threatened him.
+
+"Who is it?" she frankly demanded.
+
+"It's the Mayor, the big man of your town, Monsieur Roussillon, I think
+he calls himself. He's got himself into a tight place. He'll be shot
+to-morrow morning if that flag is not produced. Governor Hamilton has
+so ordered, and what he orders is done."
+
+"You jest, Monsieur."
+
+"I assure you that I speak the plain truth."
+
+"You will probably catch Monsieur Roussillon before you shoot him." She
+tossed her head.
+
+"He is already a prisoner in the fort."
+
+Alice turned pale.
+
+"Monsieur, is this true?" Her voice had lost its happy tone. "Are you
+telling me that to--"
+
+"You can verify it, Mademoiselle, by calling upon the commander at the
+fort. I am sorry that you doubt my veracity. If you will go with me I
+will show you M. Roussillon a tightly bound prisoner."
+
+Jean had crept out of the gate and was standing just behind Alice with
+his feet wide apart, his long chin elevated, his head resting far back
+between his upthrust shoulders, his hands in his pockets, his uncanny
+eyes gazing steadily at Farnsworth. He looked like a deformed frog
+ready to jump.
+
+Alice unmistakably saw truth in the Captain's countenance and felt it
+in his voice. The reality came to her with unhindered effect. M.
+Roussillon's life depended upon the return of the flag. She put her
+hands together and for a moment covered her eyes with them.
+
+"I will go now, Mademoiselle," said Farnsworth; "but I hope you will be
+in great haste about returning the flag."
+
+He stood looking at her. He was profoundly touched and felt that to say
+more would be too brutal even for his coarse nature; so he simply
+lifted his hat and went away.
+
+Jean took hold of Alice's dress as she turned to go back into the house.
+
+"Is he going to take the flag? Can he find it? What does he want with
+it? What did you do with the flag, Alice?" he whined, in his peculiar,
+quavering voice. "Where is it?"
+
+Her skirt dragged him along as she walked.
+
+"Where did you put it, Alice?"
+
+"Father Beret hid it under his floor," she answered, involuntarily, and
+almost unconsciously. "I shall have to take it back and give it up."
+
+"No--no--I wouldn't," he quavered, dancing across the veranda as she
+quickened her pace and fairly spun him along. "I wouldn't let 'em have
+it at all."
+
+Alice's mind was working with lightning speed. Her imagination took
+strong grip on the situation so briefly and effectively sketched by
+Captain Farnsworth. Her decision formed itself quickly.
+
+"Stay here, Jean. I am going to the fort. Don't tell Mama Roussillon a
+thing. Be a good boy."
+
+She was gone before Jean could say a word. She meant to face Hamilton
+at once and be sure what danger menaced M. Roussillon. Of course, the
+flag must be given up if that would save her foster father any pain;
+and if his life were in question there could not be too great haste on
+her part.
+
+She ran directly to the stockade gate and breathlessly informed a
+sentinel that she must see Governor Hamilton, into whose presence she
+was soon led. Captain Farnsworth had preceded her but a minute or two,
+and was present when she entered the miserable shed room where the
+commander was having another talk with M. Roussillon.
+
+The meeting was a tableau which would have been comical but for the
+pressure of its tragic possibilities. Hamilton, stern and sententious,
+stood frowning upon M. Roussillon, who sat upon the ground, his feet
+and hands tightly bound, a colossal statue of injured innocence.
+
+Alice, as soon as she saw M. Roussillon, uttered a cry of sympathetic
+endearment and flung herself toward him with open arms. She could not
+reach around his great shoulders; but she did her best to include the
+whole bulk.
+
+"Papa! Papa Roussillon!" she chirruped between the kisses that she
+showered upon his weather-beaten face.
+
+Hamilton and Farnsworth regarded the scene with curious and surprised
+interest. M. Roussillon began speaking rapidly; but being a Frenchman
+he could not get on well with his tongue while his hands were tied. He
+could shrug his shoulders; that helped him some.
+
+"I am to be shot, MA PETITE," he pathetically growled in his deep bass
+voice; "shot like a dog at sunrise to-morrow."
+
+Alice kissed M. Roussillon's rough cheek once more and sprang to her
+feet facing Hamilton.
+
+"You are not such a fiend and brute as to kill Papa Roussillon," she
+cried. "Why do you want to injure my poor, good papa?"
+
+"I believe you are the young lady that stole the flag?" Hamilton
+remarked, smiling contemptuously.
+
+She looked at him with a swift flash of indignation as he uttered these
+words.
+
+"I am not a thief. I could not steal what was my own. I helped to make
+that flag. It was named after me. I took it because it was mine. You
+understand me, Monsieur."
+
+"Tell where it is and your father's life will be spared."
+
+She glanced at M. Roussillon.
+
+"No, Alice," said he, with a pathetically futile effort to make a fine
+gesture, "don't do it. I am brave enough to die. You would not have me
+act the coward."
+
+No onlooker would have even remotely suspected the fact that M.
+Roussillon had chanced to overhear a conversation between Hamilton and
+Farnsworth, in which Hamilton stated that he really did not intend to
+hurt M. Roussillon in any event; he merely purposed to humiliate the
+"big wind-bag!"
+
+"Ah, no; let me die bravely for honor's sake--I fear death far less
+than dishonor! They can shoot me, my little one, but they cannot break
+my proud spirit." He tried to strike his breast over his heart.
+
+"Perhaps it would be just as well to let him be shot," said Hamilton
+gruffly, and with dry indifference. "I don't fancy that he's of much
+value to the community at best. He'll make a good target for a squad,
+and we need an example."
+
+"Do you mean it?--you ugly English brute--would you murder him?" she
+stamped her foot.
+
+"Not if I get that flag between now and sundown. Otherwise I shall
+certainly have him shot. It is all in your hands, Mademoiselle. You can
+tell me where the flag is." Hamilton smiled again with exquisite
+cruelty.
+
+Farnsworth stood by gazing upon Alice in open admiration. Her presence
+had power in it, to which he was very susceptible.
+
+"You look like a low, dishonorable, soulless tyrant," she said to
+Hamilton, "and if you get my flag, how shall I know that you will keep
+your promise and let Papa Roussillon go free?"
+
+"I am sorry to say that you will have to trust me, unless you'll take
+Captain Farnsworth for security. The Captain is a gentleman, I assure
+you. Will you stand good for my veracity and sincerity, Captain
+Farnsworth?"
+
+The young man smiled and bowed.
+
+Alice felt the irony; and her perfectly frank nature preferred to trust
+rather than distrust the sincerity of others. She looked at Farnsworth,
+who smiled encouragingly.
+
+"The flag is under Father Beret's floor," she said.
+
+"Under the church floor?"
+
+"No, under the floor of his house."
+
+"Where is his house?"
+
+She gave full directions how to reach it.
+
+"Untie the prisoner," Hamilton ordered, and it was quickly done.
+"Monsieur Roussillon, I congratulate you upon your narrow escape. Go to
+the priest's house, Monsieur, and bring me that flag. It would be well,
+I assure you, not to be very long about it. Captain Farnsworth, you
+will send a guard with Monsieur Roussillon, a guard of honor, fitting
+his official dignity, a Corporal and two men. The honorable Mayor of
+this important city should not go alone upon so important an errand. He
+must have his attendants."
+
+"Permit me to go myself and get it," said Alice, "I can do it quickly.
+May I, please, Monsieur?"
+
+Hamilton looked sharply at her.
+
+"Why, certainly, Mademoiselle, certainly. Captain Farnsworth, you will
+escort the young lady."
+
+"It is not necessary, Monsieur."
+
+"Oh, yes, it is necessary, my dear young lady, very necessary; so let's
+not have further words. I'll try to entertain his honor, the Mayor,
+while you go and get the flag. I feel sure, Mademoiselle, that you'll
+return with it in a few minutes. But you must not go alone."
+
+Alice set forth immediately, and Farnsworth, try as hard as he would,
+could never reach her side, so swift was her gait.
+
+When they arrived at Father Beret's cabin, she turned and said with
+imperious severity:
+
+"Don't you come in; you stay out here: I'll get it in a minute."
+
+Farnsworth obeyed her command.
+
+The door was wide open, but Father Beret was not inside; he had gone to
+see a sick child in the outskirts of the village. Alice looked about
+and hesitated. She knew the very puncheon that covered the flag; but
+she shrank from lifting it. There seemed nothing else to do, however;
+so, after some trouble with herself, she knelt upon the floor and
+turned the heavy slab over with a great thump. The flag did not appear.
+She peeped under the other puncheons. It was not there. The only thing
+visible was a little ball of paper fragments not larger than an egg.
+
+Farnsworth heard her utter a low cry of surprise or dismay, and was on
+the point of going in when Father Beret, coming around the corner of
+the cabin, confronted him. The meeting was so sudden and unexpected
+that both men recoiled slightly, and then, with a mutual stare, saluted.
+
+"I came with a young lady to get the flag," said Farnsworth. "She is
+inside. I hope there is no serious intrusion. She says the flag is
+hidden under your floor."
+
+Father Beret said nothing, but frowning as if much annoyed, stepped
+through the doorway to Alice's side, and stooping where she knelt, laid
+a hand on her shoulder as she glanced up and recognized him.
+
+"What are you doing, my child?"
+
+"Oh, Father, where is the flag?" It was all that she could say. "Where
+is the flag?"
+
+"Why, isn't it there?"
+
+"No, you see it isn't there! Where is it?"
+
+The priest stood as if dumfounded, gazing into the vacant space
+uncovered by the puncheon.
+
+"Is it gone? Has some one taken it away?"
+
+They turned up all the floor to no avail. La banniere d'Alice
+Roussillon had disappeared, and Captain Farnsworth went forthwith to
+report the fact to his commander. When he reached the shed at the angle
+of the fort he found Governor Hamilton sitting stupid and dazed on the
+ground. One jaw was inflamed and swollen and an eye was half closed and
+bloodshot. He turned his head with a painful, irregular motion and his
+chin sagged.
+
+Farnsworth sprang to him and lifted him to his feet; but he could
+scarcely stand. He licked his lips clumsily.
+
+"What is the matter? What hurt you?"
+
+The Governor rubbed his forehead trying to recollect.
+
+"He struck me," he presently said with difficulty. "He hit me with his
+fist Where--where is he?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"That big French idiot--that Roussillon--go after him, take him, shoot
+him--quick! I have been stunned; I don't know how long he's been gone.
+Give the alarm--do something!"
+
+Hamilton, as he gathered his wits together, began to foam with rage,
+and his passion gave his bruised and swollen face a terrible look.
+
+The story was short, and may be quickly told. M. Roussillon had taken
+advantage of the first moment when he and Hamilton were left alone. One
+herculean buffet, a swinging smash of his enormous fist on the point of
+the Governors jaw, and then he walked out of the fort unchallenged,
+doubtless on account of his lordly and masterful air.
+
+"Ziff!" he exclaimed, shaking himself and lifting his shoulders, when
+he had passed beyond hearing of the sentinel at the gate, "ziff! I can
+punch a good stiff stroke yet, Monsieur le Gouverneur. Ah, ziff!" and
+he blew like a porpoise.
+
+Every effort was promptly made to recapture M. Roussillon; but his
+disappearance was absolute; even the reward offered for his scalp by
+Hamilton only gave the Indians great trouble--they could not find the
+man.
+
+Such a beginning of his administration of affairs at Vincennes did not
+put Hamilton into a good humor. He was overbearing and irascible at
+best, and under the irritation of small but exceedingly unpleasant
+experiences he made life well-nigh unendurable to those upon whom his
+dislike chanced to fall. Beverley quickly felt that it was going to be
+very difficult for him and Hamilton to get along agreeably. With Helm
+it was quite different; smoking, drinking, playing cards, telling good
+stories--in a word, rude and not unfrequently boisterous conviviality
+drew him and the commandant together.
+
+Under Captain Farnsworth's immediate supervision the fort was soon in
+excellent repair and a large blockhouse and comfortable quarters for
+the men were built. Every day added to the strength of the works and to
+the importance of the post as a strategic position for the advance
+guard of the British army.
+
+Hamilton was ambitious to prove himself conspicuously valuable to his
+country. He was dreaming vast dreams and laying large plans. The
+Indians were soon anxious to gain his favor; and to bind them securely
+to him he offered liberal pay in rum and firearms, blankets, trinkets
+and ammunition for the scalps of rebels. He kept this as secret as
+possible from his prisoners; but Beverley soon suspected that a
+"traffic in hair," as the terrible business had been named, was going
+on. Savages came in from far away with scalps yet scarcely dry dangling
+at their belts. It made the young Virginian's blood chill in his heart,
+and he regretted that he had given Hamilton his parole of honor not to
+attempt to escape.
+
+Among the Indians occasionally reporting to Hamilton with their ghastly
+but valuable trophies was Long-Hair, who slipped into the fort and out
+again rather warily, not having much confidence in those Frenchmen who
+had once upon a time given him a memorable run for his life.
+
+Winter shut down, not cold, but damp, changeable, raw. The work on the
+fort was nearly completed, and Rene de Ronville would have soon been
+relieved of his servile and exasperating employment under the Irish
+Corporal; but just at the point of time when only a few days' work
+remained for him, he became furious, on account of an insulting remark,
+and struck the Corporal over the head with a handspike. This happened
+in a wood some miles from town, where he was loading logs upon a sled.
+There chanced to be no third person present when the deed was done, and
+some hours passed before they found the officer quite cold and stiff
+beside the sled. His head was crushed to a pulp.
+
+Hamilton, now thoroughly exasperated, began to look upon the French
+inhabitants of Vincennes as all like M. Roussillon and Rene, but
+waiting for an opportunity to strike him unawares. He increased his
+military vigilance, ordered the town patrolled day and night, and
+forbade public gatherings of the citizens, while at the same time he
+forced them to furnish him a large amount of provisions.
+
+When little Adrienne Bourcier heard of Renews terrible act, followed by
+his successful escape to the woods, and of the tempting reward offered
+by Hamilton for his scalp, she ran to Roussillon place well-nigh crazed
+with excitement. She had always depended upon Alice for advice,
+encouragement and comfort in her troubles; but in the present case
+there was not much that her friend could do to cheer her. With M.
+Roussillon and Rene both fugitives, tracked by wily savages, a price on
+their heads, while every day added new dangers to the French
+inhabitants of Vincennes, no rosy view could possibly be taken of the
+situation. Alice did her best, however, to strengthen her little
+friend's faith in a happy outcome. She quoted what she considered
+unimpeachable authority to support her optimistic argument.
+
+"Lieutenant Beverley says that the Americans will be sure to drive
+Hamilton out of Vincennes, or capture him. Probably they are not so
+very far away now, and Rene may join them and come back to help punish
+these brutal Englishmen. Don't you wish he would, Adrienne? Wouldn't it
+be romantic?"
+
+"He's armed, I know that," said Adrienne, brightening a little, "and
+he's brave, Alice, brave as can be. He came right back into town the
+other night and got his gun and pistols. He was at our house, too, and,
+oh!--"
+
+She burst out crying again. "O Alice! It breaks my heart to think that
+the Indians will kill him. Do you think they will kill him, Alice?"
+
+"He'll come nearer killing them," said Alice confidently, with her
+strong, warm arms around the tiny lass; "he's a good woodsman, a fine
+shot--he's not so easy to kill, my dear. If he and Papa Roussillon
+should get together by chance they would be a match for all the Indians
+in the country. Anyway, I feel that it's much better for them to take
+their chances in the woods than to be in the hands of Governor
+Hamilton. If I were a man I'd do just as Papa Roussillon and Rene did;
+I'd break the bigoted head of every Englishman that mistreated me, I'll
+do it, girl as I am, if they annoy me, see if I don't!"
+
+She was thinking of Captain Farnsworth, who had been from the first
+untiring in his efforts to gain something more than a passing
+acquaintance. As yet he had not made himself unbearable; but Alice's
+fine intuition led her to the conclusion that she must guard against
+him from the outset.
+
+Adrienne's simple heart could not grasp the romantic criterion with
+which Alice was wont to measure action. Her mind was single, impulsive,
+narrow and direct in all its movements. She loved, hated, desired,
+caressed, repulsed, not for any assignable reason more solid or more
+luminous than "because." She adored Rene and wanted him near her. He
+was a hero in her imagination, no matter what he did. Little difference
+was it to her whether he hauled logs for the English or smoked his pipe
+in idleness by the winter fire--what could it matter which flag he
+served under, so that he was true to her? Or whom he served if she
+could always have him coming to see her and calling her his little pet?
+He might crush an Irish Corporal's head every day, if he would but
+stroke her hair and say: "My sweet little one."
+
+"Why couldn't he be quiet and do as your man, Lieutenant Beverley,
+did?" she cried in a sudden change of mood, the tears streaming down
+her cheeks. "Lieutenant Beverley surrendered and took the consequences.
+He didn't kill somebody and run off to be hunted like a bear. No wonder
+you're happy, Alice; I'd be happy, too, if Rene were here and came to
+spend half of every day with me. I--"
+
+"Why, what a silly girl you are!" Alice exclaimed, her face reddening
+prettily. "How foolishly you prattle! I'm sure I don't trouble myself
+about Lieutenant Beverley--what put such absurd nonsense into your
+head, Adrienne?"
+
+"Because, that's what, and you know it's so, too. You love him just as
+much as I love Rene, and that's just all the love in the world, and you
+needn't deny it, Alice Roussillon!"
+
+Alice laughed and hugged the wee, brown-faced mite of a girl until she
+almost smothered her.
+
+It was growing dusk when Adrienne left Roussillon place to go home. The
+wind cut icily across the commons and moaned as it whirled around the
+cabins and cattle-sheds. She ran briskly, muffled in a wrap, partly
+through fear and partly to keep warm, and had gone two-thirds of her
+way when she was brought to an abrupt stop by the arms of a man. She
+screamed sharply, and Father Beret, who was coming out of a cabin not
+far away, heard and knew the voice.
+
+"Ho-ho, my little lady!" cried Adrienne's captor in a breezy, jocund
+tone, "you wouldn't run over a fellow, would you?" The words were
+French, but the voice was that of Captain Farnsworth, who laughed while
+he spoke. "You jump like a rabbit, my darling! Why, what a lively
+little chick of a girl it is!"
+
+Adrienne screamed and struggled recklessly.
+
+"Now don't rouse up the town," coaxed the Captain. He was just drunk
+enough to be quite a fool, yet sufficiently sober to imagine himself
+the most proper person in the world. "I don't mean you any harm,
+Mademoiselle; I'll just see you safe home, you know; 'scort you to your
+residence; come on, now--that's a good girl."
+
+Father Beret hurried to the spot, and when in the deepening gloom he
+saw Adrienne flinging herself violently this way and that, helplessly
+trying to escape from the clasp of a man, he did to perfection what a
+priest is supposed to be the least fitted to do. Indeed, considering
+his age and leaving his vocation out of the reckoning, his performance
+was amazing. It is not certain that the blow dealt upon Governor
+Hamilton's jaw by M. Roussillon was a stiffer one than that sent
+straight from the priest's shoulder right into the short ribs of
+Captain Farnsworth, who there-upon released a mighty grunt and doubled
+himself up.
+
+Adrienne recognized her assailant at the first and used his name freely
+during the struggle. When Father Beret appeared she cried out to him--
+
+"Oh, Father--Father Beret! help me! help me!"
+
+When Farnsworth recovered from the breath-expelling shock of the jab in
+his side and got himself once more in a vertical position, both girl
+and priest were gone. He looked this way and that, rapidly becoming
+sober, and beginning to wonder how the thing could have happened so
+easily. His ribs felt as if they had been hit with a heavy hammer.
+
+"By Jove!" he muttered all to himself, "the old prayer-singing heathen!
+By Jove!" And with this very brilliant and relevant observation he
+rubbed his sore side and went his way to the fort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A SWORD AND A HORSE PISTOL
+
+
+We hear much about the "days that tried men's souls"; but what about
+the souls of women in those same days? Sitting in the liberal geniality
+of the nineteenth century's sunset glow, we insist upon having our
+grumble at the times and the manners of our generation; but if we had
+to exchange places, periods and experiences with the people who lived
+in America through the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there
+would be good ground for despairing ululations. And if our men could
+not bear it, if it would try their souls too poignantly, let us imagine
+the effect upon our women. No, let us not imagine it; but rather let us
+give full credit to the heroic souls of the mothers and the maidens who
+did actually bear up in the center of that terrible struggle and
+unflinchingly help win for us not only freedom, but the vast empire
+which at this moment is at once the master of the world and the model
+toward which all the nations of the earth are slowly but surely tending.
+
+If Alice was an extraordinary girl, she was not aware of it; nor had
+she ever understood that her life was being shaped by extraordinary
+conditions. Of course it could not but be plain to her that she knew
+more and felt more than the girls of her narrow acquaintance; that her
+accomplishments were greater; that she nursed splendid dreams of which
+they could have no proper comprehension, but until now she had never
+even dimly realized that she was probably capable of being something
+more than a mere creole lass, the foster daughter of Gaspard
+Roussillon, trader in pelts and furs. Even her most romantic visions
+had never taken the form of personal desire, or ambition in its most
+nebulous stage; they had simply pleased her fresh and natural fancy and
+served to gild the hardness and crudeness of her life,--that was all.
+
+Her experiences had been almost too terrible for belief, viewed at our
+distance from them; she had passed through scenes of incredible horror
+and suffering, but her nature had not been chilled, stunted or
+hardened. In body and in temper her development had been sound and
+beautiful. It was even thus that our great-grandmothers triumphed over
+adversity, hardship, indescribable danger. We cannot say that the
+strong, lithe, happy-hearted Alice of old Vincennes was the only one of
+her kind. Few of us who have inherited the faded portraits of our
+revolutionary forbears can doubt that beauty, wit and great lovableness
+flourished in the cabins of pioneers all the way from the Edisto to the
+Licking, from the Connecticut to the Wabash.
+
+Beverley's advent could not fail to mean a great deal in the life of a
+girl like Alice; a new era, as it were, would naturally begin for her
+the moment that his personal influence touched her imagination; but it
+is well not to measure her too strictly by the standard of our present
+taste and the specialized forms of our social and moral code. She was a
+true child of the wilderness, a girl who grew, as the wild prairie rose
+grew, not on account of innumerable exigencies, accidents and
+hardships, but in spite of them. She had blushed unseen, and had wasted
+divine sweets upon a more than desert air. But when Beverley came near
+her, at first carelessly droning his masculine monotonies, as the
+wandering bee to the lonely and lovely rose, and presently striking her
+soul as with the wings of Love, there fell a change into her heart of
+hearts, and lo! her haunting and elusive dreams began to condense and
+take on forms that startled her with their wonderful splendor and
+beauty. These she saw all the time, sleeping or waking; they made
+bright summer of the frozen stream and snapping gale, the snowdrifts
+and the sleet. In her brave young heart, swelled the ineffable
+song--the music never yet caught by syrinx or flute or violin, the
+words no tongue can speak.
+
+Ah, here may be the secret of that vigorous, brave, sweet life of our
+pioneer maids, wives, and mothers. It was love that gave those tender
+hearts the iron strength and heroic persistence at which the world must
+forever wonder. And do we appreciate those women? Let the Old World
+boast its crowned kings, its mailed knights, its ladies of the court
+and castle; but we of the New World, we of the powerful West, let us
+brim our cups with the wine of undying devotion, and drink to the
+memory of the Women of the Revolution,--to the humble but good and
+marvelously brave and faithful women like those of old Vincennes.
+
+But if Alice was being radically influenced by Beverley, he in turn
+found a new light suffusing his nature, and he was not unaware that it
+came out of her eyes, her face, her smiles, her voice, her soul. It was
+the old, well-known, inexplicable, mutual magnetism, which from the
+first has been the same on the highest mountain-top and in the lowest
+valley. The queen and the milkmaid, the king and the hind may come
+together only to find the king walking off with the lowly beauty and
+her fragrant pail, while away stalks the lusty rustic, to be lord and
+master of the queen. Love is love, and it thrives in all climes, under
+all conditions.
+
+There is an inevitable and curious protest that comes up unbidden
+between lovers; it takes many forms in accordance with particular
+circumstances. It is the demand for equality and perfection. Love
+itself is without degrees--it is perfect--but when shall it see the
+perfect object? It does see it, and it does not see it, in every
+beloved being. Beverley found his mind turning, as on a pivot, round
+and round upon the thought that Alice might be impossible to him. The
+mystery of her life seemed to force her below the line of his
+aristocratic vision, so that he could not fairly consider her, and yet
+with all his heart he loved her. Alice, on the other hand, had her
+bookish ideal to reckon with, despite the fact that she daily dashed it
+contemptuously down. She was different from Adrienne Bourcier, who
+bewailed the absence of her un-tamable lover; she wished that Beverley
+had not, as she somehow viewed it, weakly surrendered to Hamilton. His
+apparently complacent acceptance of idle captivity did not comport with
+her dream of knighthood and heroism. She had been all the time half
+expecting him to do something that would stamp him a hero.
+
+Counter protests of this sort are never sufficiently vigorous to take a
+fall out of Love; they merely serve to worry his temper by lightly
+hindering his feet. And it is surprising how Love does delight himself
+with being entangled.
+
+Both Beverley and Alice day by day felt the cord tightening which drew
+their hearts together--each acknowledged it secretly, but strove not to
+evince it openly. Meantime both were as happy and as restlessly
+dissatisfied as love and uncertainty could make them.
+
+Amid the activities in which Hamilton was engaged--his dealings with
+the Indians and the work of reconstructing the fort--he found time to
+worry his temper about the purloined flag. Like every other man in the
+world, he was superstitious, and it had come into his head that to
+insure himself and his plans against disaster, he must have the banner
+of his captives as a badge of his victory. It was a small matter; but
+it magnified itself as he dwelt upon it. He suspected that Alice had
+deceived him. He sharply questioned Father Beret, only to be half
+convinced that the good priest told the truth when he said that he knew
+nothing whatever on the subject beyond the fact that the banner had
+mysteriously disappeared from under his floor.
+
+Captain Farnsworth scarcely sympathized with his chief about the flag,
+but he was nothing if not anxious to gain Hamilton's highest
+confidence. His military zeal knew no bounds, and he never let pass
+even the slightest opportunity to show it. Hence his persistent search
+for a clue to the missing banner. He was no respecter of persons. He
+frankly suspected both Alice and Father Beret of lying. He would
+himself have lied under the existing circumstances, and he considered
+himself as truthful and trustworthy as priest or maiden.
+
+"I'll get that flag for you," he said to Hamilton, "if I have to put
+every man, woman and child in this town on the rack. It lies, I think,
+between Miss Roussillon and the priest, although both insistently deny
+it. I've thought it over in every way, and I can't see how they can
+both be ignorant of where it is, or at least who got it."
+
+Hamilton, since being treated to that wonderful blow on the jaw, was
+apt to fall into a spasm of anger whenever the name Roussillon was
+spoken in his hearing. Involuntarily he would put his hand to his
+cheek, and grimace reminiscently.
+
+"If it's that girl, make her tell," he savagely commanded. "Let's have
+no trifling about it. If it's the priest, then make him tell, or tie
+him up by the thumbs. Get that flag, or show some good reason for your
+failure. I'm not going to be baffled."
+
+The Captain's adventure with Father Beret came just in time to make it
+count against that courageous and bellicose missionary in more ways
+than one. Farnsworth did not tell Hamilton or any other person about
+what the priest had done to him, but nursed his sore ribs and his
+wrath, waiting patiently for the revenge that he meant soon to take.
+
+Alice heard from Adrienne the story of Farnsworth's conduct and his
+humiliating discomfiture at the hands of Father Beret. She was both
+indignant and delighted, sympathizing with Adrienne and glorying in the
+priest's vigorous pugilistic achievement.
+
+"Well," she remarked, with one of her infectious trills of laughter,
+"so far the French have the best of it, anyway! Papa Roussillon knocked
+the Governor's cheek nearly off, then Rene cracked the Irish Corporal's
+head, and now Father Beret has taught Captain Farnsworth a lesson in
+fisticuffs that he'll not soon forget! If the good work can only go on
+a little longer we shall see every English soldier in Vincennes wearing
+the mark of a Frenchman's blow." Then her mood suddenly changed from
+smiling lightness to almost fierce gravity, and she added:
+
+"Adrienne Bourcier, if Captain Farnsworth ever offers to treat me as he
+did you, mark my words, I'll kill him--kill him, indeed I will! You
+ought to see me!"
+
+"But he won't dare touch you," said Adrienne, looking at her friend
+with round, admiring eyes. "He knows very well that you are not little
+and timid like me. He'd be afraid of you."
+
+"I wish he would try it. How I would love to shoot him into pieces, the
+hateful wretch! I wish he would."
+
+The French inhabitants all, or nearly all, felt as Alice did; but at
+present they were helpless and dared not say or do anything against the
+English. Nor was this feeling confined to the Creoles of Vincennes; it
+had spread to most of the points where trading posts existed. Hamilton
+found this out too late to mend some of his mistakes; but he set
+himself on the alert and organized scouting bodies of Indians under
+white officers to keep him informed as to the American movements in
+Kentucky and along the Ohio. One of these bands brought in as captive
+Colonel Francis Vigo, of St. Louis, a Spaniard by birth, an American by
+adoption, a patriot to the core, who had large influence over both
+Indians and Creoles in the Illinois country.
+
+Colonel Vigo was not long held a prisoner. Hamilton dared not
+exasperate the Creoles beyond their endurance, for he knew that the
+savages would closely sympathize with their friends of long standing,
+and this might lead to revolt and coalition against him,--a very
+dangerous possibility. Indeed, at least one of the great Indian
+chieftains had already frankly informed him that he and his tribe were
+loyal to the Americans. Here was a dilemma requiring consummate
+diplomacy. Hamilton saw it, but he was not of a diplomatic temper or
+character. With the Indians he used a demoralizing system of bribery,
+while toward the whites he was too often gruff, imperious, repellant.
+Helm understood the whole situation and was quick to take advantage of
+it. His personal relations with Hamilton were easy and familiar, so
+that he did not hesitate to give advice upon all occasions. Here his
+jovial disposition helped him.
+
+"You'd better let Vigo return to St. Louis," he said. They had a bowl
+of something hot steaming between them. "I know him. He's harmless if
+you don't rub him too hard the wrong way. He'll go back, if you treat
+him well, and tell Clark how strong you are here and how foolish it
+would be to think of attacking you. Clark has but a handful of men,
+poorly supplied and tired with long, hard marches. If you'll think a
+moment you cannot fail to understand that you'd better be friends with
+this man Vigo. He and Father Gibault and this old priest here, Beret,
+carry these Frenchmen in their pockets. I'm not on your side,
+understand, I'm an American, and I'd blow the whole of you to kingdom
+come in a minute, if I could; but common sense is common sense all the
+same. There's no good to you and no harm to Clark in mistreating, or
+even holding this prisoner. What harm can he do you by going back to
+Clark and telling him the whole truth? Clark knew everything long
+before Vigo reached here. Old Jazon, my best scout, left here the day
+you took possession, and you may bet he got to Kaskaskia in short
+order. He never fails. But he'll tell Clark to stay where he is, and
+Vigo can do no more."
+
+What effect Helm's bold and apparently artless talk had upon Hamilton's
+mind is not recorded; but the meager historical facts at command show
+that Vigo was released and permitted to return under promise that he
+would give no information to the enemy ON HIS WAY to Kaskaskia.
+
+Doubtless this bit of careless diplomacy on the Governor's part did
+have a somewhat soothing effect upon a large class of Frenchmen at
+Vincennes; but Farnsworth quickly neutralized it to a serious extent by
+a foolish act while slightly under the influence of liquor.
+
+He met Father Beret near Roussillon place, and feeling his ribs squirm
+at sight of the priest, he accosted him insolently, demanding
+information as to the whereabouts of the missing flag.
+
+A priest may be good and true--Father Beret certainly was--and yet have
+the strongest characteristics of a worldly man. This thing of being
+bullied day after day, as had recently been the rule, generated nothing
+to aid in removing a refractory desire from the priest's heart--the
+worldly desire to repeat with great increment of force the punch
+against Famsworth's lower ribs.
+
+"I order you, sir, to produce that rebel flag," said Farnsworth. "You
+will obey forthwith or take the consequences. I am no longer in the
+humor to be trifled with. Do you understand?"
+
+"I might be forced to obey you, if I could," said the priest, drawing
+his robe about him; "but, as I have often told you, my son, I do not
+know where the flag is or who took it. I do not even suspect any person
+of taking it. All that I know about it is the simple fact that it is
+gone."
+
+Father Beret's manner and voice were very mild, but there must have
+been a hint of sturdy defiance somewhere in them. At all events
+Farnsworth was exasperated and fell into a white rage. Perhaps it was
+the liquor he had been drinking that made him suddenly desperate.
+
+"You canting old fool!" he cried, "don't lie to me any longer; I won't
+have it. Don't stand there grinning at me. Get that flag, or I'll make
+you."
+
+"What is impossible, my son, is possible to God alone. Apud homines hoc
+impossible est, apud Deum autem omnia possibilia sunt."
+
+"None of your Jesuit Latin or logic to me--I am not here to argue, but
+to command. Get that flag. Be in a hurry about it, sir."
+
+He whipped out his sword, and in his half drunken eyes there gathered
+the dull film of murderous passion.
+
+"Put up your weapon, Captain; you will not attack an unarmed priest.
+You are a soldier, and will not dare strike an old, defenceless man."
+
+"But I will strike a black-robed and black-hearted French rebel. Get
+that flag, you grinning fool!"
+
+The two men stood facing each other. Father Beret's eyes did not stir
+from their direct, fearless gaze. What Farnsworth had called a grin was
+a peculiar smile, not of merriment, a grayish flicker and a slight
+backward wrinkling of the cheeks. The old man's arms were loosely
+crossed upon his sturdy breast.
+
+"Strike if you must," he said very gently, very firmly. "I never yet
+have seen the man that could make me afraid." His speech was slightly
+sing-song in tone, as it would have been during a prayer or a blessing.
+
+"Get the flag then!" raged Farnsworth, in whose veins the heat of
+liquor was aided by an unreasoning choler.
+
+"I cannot," said Father Beret.
+
+"Then take the consequences!"
+
+Farnsworth lifted his sword, not to thrust, but to strike with its flat
+side, and down it flashed with a noisy whack. Father Beret flung out an
+arm and deftly turned the blow aside. It was done so easily that
+Farnsworth sprang back glaring and surprised.
+
+"You old fool!" he cried, leveling his weapon for a direct lunge. "You
+devilish hypocrite!"
+
+It was then that Father Beret turned deadly pale and swiftly crossed
+himself. His face looked as if he saw something startling just beyond
+his adversary. Possibly this sudden change of expression caused
+Farnsworth to hesitate for a mere point of time. Then there was the
+swish of a woman's skirts; a light step pattered on the frozen ground,
+and Alice sprang between the men, facing Farnsworth. As she did this
+something small and yellow,--the locket at her throat,--fell and rolled
+under her feet. Nobody saw it.
+
+In her hand she held an immense horse pistol, which she leveled in the
+Captain's face, its flaring, bugle-shaped muzzle gaping not a yard from
+his nose. The heavy tube was as steady as if in a vise.
+
+"Drop that sword!"
+
+That was all she said; but her finger was pressing the trigger, and the
+flint in the backward slanting hammer was ready to click against the
+steel. The leaden slugs were on the point of leaping forth.
+
+"Drop that sword!"
+
+The repetition seemed to close the opportunity for delay.
+
+Farnsworth was on his guard in a twinkling. He set his jaw and uttered
+an ugly oath; then quick as lightning he struck sidewise at the pistol
+with his blade. It was a move which might have taken a less alert
+person than Alice unawares; but her training in sword-play was ready in
+her wrist and hand. An involuntary turn, the slightest imaginable, set
+the heavy barrel of her weapon strongly against the blow, partly
+stopping it, and then the gaping muzzle spat its load of balls and
+slugs with a bellow that awoke the drowsy old village.
+
+Farnsworth staggered backward, letting fall his sword. There was a rent
+in the clothing of his left shoulder. He reeled; the blood spun out;
+but he did not fall, although he grew white.
+
+Alice stood gazing at him with a look on her face he would never
+forget. It was a look that changed by wonderful swift gradations from
+terrible hate to something like sweet pity. The instant she saw him
+hurt and bleeding, his countenance relaxing and pale, her heart failed
+her. She took a step toward him, her hand opened, and with a thud the
+heavy old pistol fell upon the ground beside her.
+
+Father Beret sprang nimbly to sustain Farnsworth, snatching up the
+pistol as he passed around Alice.
+
+"You are hurt, my son," he gently said, "let me help you." He passed
+his arm firmly under that of Farnsworth, seeing that the Captain was
+unsteady on his feet.
+
+"Lean upon me. Come with me, Alice, my child, I will take him into the
+house."
+
+Alice picked up the Captain's sword and led the way.
+
+It was all done so quickly that Farnsworth, in his half dazed
+condition, scarcely realized what was going on until he found himself
+on a couch in the Roussillon home, his wound (a jagged furrow plowed
+out by slugs that the sword's blade had first intercepted) neatly
+dressed and bandaged, while Alice and the priest hovered over him busy
+with their careful ministrations.
+
+Hamilton and Helm were, as usual, playing cards at the former's
+quarters when a guard announced that Mademoiselle Roussillon wished an
+audience with the Governor.
+
+"Bring the girl in," said Hamilton, throwing down his cards and
+scowling darkly.
+
+"Now you'd better be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove," remarked
+Helm. "There is something up, and that gun-shot we heard awhile ago may
+have a good deal to do with it. At any rate, you'll find kindness your
+best card to play with Alice Roussillon just at the present stage of
+the game."
+
+Of course they knew nothing of what had happened to Farnsworth; but
+they had been discussing the strained relations between the garrison
+and the French inhabitants when the roar of Alice's big-mouthed pistol
+startled them. Helm was slyly beating about to try to make Hamilton
+lose sight of the danger from Clark's direction. To do this he artfully
+magnified the insidious work that might be done by the French and their
+Indian friends should they be driven to desperation by oppressive or
+exasperating action on the part of the English.
+
+Hamilton felt the dangerous uncertainty upon which the situation
+rested; but, like many another vigorously self-reliant man, he could
+not subordinate his passions to the dictates of policy. When Alice was
+conducted into his presence he instantly swelled with anger. It was her
+father who had struck him and escaped, it was she who had carried off
+the rebel flag at the moment of victory.
+
+"Well, Miss, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?" he demanded
+with a supercilious air, bending a card between his thumb and finger on
+the rude table.
+
+She stood before him tall and straight, well bundled in furs. She was
+not pale; her blood was too rich and brilliant for that; but despite a
+half-smile and the inextinguishable dimples, there was a touch of
+something appealingly pathetic in the lines of her mouth. She did not
+waver or hesitate, however, but spoke promptly and distinctly.
+
+"I have come, Monsieur, to tell you that I have hurt Captain
+Farnsworth. He was about to kill Father Beret, and I shot him. He is in
+our house and well cared for. I don't think his wound is bad. And--"
+here she hesitated at last and let her gaze fall,--"so here I am." Then
+she lifted her eyes again and made an inimitable French gesture with
+her shoulders and arms. "You will do as you please, Monsieur, I am at
+your mercy."
+
+Hamilton was astounded. Helm sat staring phlegmatically. Meantime
+Beverley entered the room and stopped hat in hand behind Alice. He was
+flushed and evidently excited; in fact, he had heard of the trouble
+with Farnsworth, and seeing Alice enter the floor of Hamilton's
+quarters he followed her in, his heart stirred by no slight emotion. He
+met the Governor's glare and parried it with one of equal haughtiness.
+The veins on his forehead swelled and turned dark. He was in a mood to
+do whatever desperate act should suggest itself.
+
+When Hamilton fairly comprehended the message so graphically presented
+by Alice, he rose from his seat by the fire.
+
+"What's this you tell me?" he blurted. "You say you've shot Captain
+Farnsworth?"
+
+"Oui, Monsieur."
+
+He stared a moment, then his features beamed with hate.
+
+"And I'll have you shot for it, Miss, as sure as you stand there in
+your silly impudence ogling me so brazenly!"
+
+He leaned toward her as he spoke and sent with the words a shock of
+coarse, passionate energy from which she recoiled as if expecting a
+blow to follow it.
+
+An irresistible impulse swept Beverley to Alice's side, and his
+attitude was that of a protector. Helm sprang up.
+
+A Lieutenant came in and respectfully, but with evident over-haste,
+reported that Captain Farnsworth had been shot and was at Roussillon
+place in care of the surgeon.
+
+"Take this girl into custody. Confine her and put a strong guard over
+her."
+
+In giving the order Hamilton jerked his thumb contemptuously toward
+Alice, and at the same time gave Beverley a look of supreme defiance
+and hatred. When Helm began to speak he turned fiercely upon him and
+stopped him with:
+
+"None of your advice, sir. I have had all I want of it. Keep your place
+or I'll make you."
+
+Then to Beverley:
+
+"Retire, sir. When I wish to see you I'll send for you. At present you
+are not needed here."
+
+The English Lieutenant saluted his commander, bowed respectfully to
+Alice and said:
+
+"Come with me, Miss, please."
+
+Helm and Beverley exchanged a look of helpless and enquiring rage. It
+was as if they had said: "What can we do? Must we bear it?" Certainly
+they could do nothing. Any interference on their part would be sure to
+increase Alice's danger, and at the same time add to the weight of
+their own humiliation.
+
+Alice silently followed the officer out of the room. She did not even
+glance toward Beverley, who moved as if to interfere and was promptly
+motioned back by the guard. His better judgement returning held him
+from a rash and futile act, until Hamilton spoke again, saying loudly
+as Alice passed through the door:
+
+"I'll see who's master of this town if I have to shoot every French
+hoyden in it!"
+
+"Women and children may well fear you, Colonel Hamilton," said
+Beverley. "That young lady is your superior."
+
+"You say that to me, sir!"
+
+"It is the best I could possibly say of you."
+
+"I will send you along with the wench if you do not guard your
+language. A prisoner on parole has no license to be a blackguard."
+
+"I return you my parole, sir, I shall no longer regard it as binding,"
+said Beverley, by a great effort, holding back a blow; "I will not keep
+faith with a scoundrel who does not know how to be decent in the
+presence of a young girl. You had better have me arrested and confined.
+I will escape at the first opportunity and bring a force here to reckon
+with you for your villainy. And if you dare hurt Alice Roussillon I
+will have you hanged like a dog!"
+
+Hamilton looked at him scornfully, smiling as one who feels safe in his
+authority and means to have his own way with his victim. Naturally he
+regarded Beverley's words as the merest vaporings of a helpless and
+exasperated young man. He saw very clearly that love was having a hand
+in the affair, and he chuckled inwardly, thinking what a fool Beverley
+was.
+
+"I thought I ordered you to leave this room," he said with an air and
+tone of lofty superiority, "and I certainly mean to be obeyed. Go, sir,
+and if you attempt to escape, or in any way break your parole, I'll
+have you shot."
+
+"I have already broken it. From this moment I shall not regard it. You
+have heard my statement. I shall not repeat it. Govern yourself
+accordingly."
+
+With these words Beverley turned and strode out of the house, quite
+beside himself, his whole frame quivering.
+
+Hamilton laughed derisively, then looked at Helm and said:
+
+"Helm, I like you; I don't wish to be unkind to you; but positively you
+must quit breaking in upon my affairs with your ready-made advice. I've
+given you and Lieutenant Beverley too much latitude, perhaps. If that
+young fool don't look sharp he'll get himself into a beastly lot of
+trouble. You'd better give him a talk. He's in a way to need it just
+now."
+
+"I think so myself," said Helm, glad to get back upon fair footing with
+the irascible Governor. "I'll wait until he cools off somewhat, and
+then I can manage him. Leave him to me."
+
+"Well, come walk with me to see what has really happened to Farnsworth.
+He's probably not much hurt, and deserves what he's got. That girl has
+turned his head. I think I understand the whole affair. A little love,
+a little wine, some foolishness, and the wench shot him."
+
+Helm genially assented; but they were delayed for some time by an
+officer who came in to consult with Hamilton on some pressing Indian
+affairs. When they reached Roussillon place they met Beverley coming
+out; but he did not look at them. He was scarcely aware of them. A
+little way outside the gate, on going in, he had picked up Alice's
+locket and broken chain, which he mechanically put into his pocket. It
+was all like a dream to him, and yet he had a clear purpose. He was
+going away from Vincennes, or at least he would try, and woe be to
+Hamilton on his coming back. It was so easy for an excited young mind
+to plan great things and to expect success under apparently impossible
+conditions. Beverley gave Jean a note for Alice; it was this that took
+him to Roussillon place; and no sooner fell the night than he
+shouldered a gun furnished him by Madame Godere, and guided by the
+woodsman's fine craft, stole away southward, thinking to swim the icy
+Wabash some miles below, and then strike across the plains of Illinois
+to Kaskaskia.
+
+It was a desperate undertaking; but in those days desperate
+undertakings were rather the rule than the exception. Moreover, love
+was the leader and Beverley the blind follower. Nothing could daunt him
+or turn him back, until he found an army to lead against Hamilton. It
+seems but a romantic burst of indignation, as we look back at it,
+hopelessly foolish, with no possible end but death in the wilderness.
+Still there was a method in love's madness, and Beverley, with his
+superb physique, his knowledge of the wilderness and his indomitable
+self-reliance, was by no means without his fighting chance for success.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MANON LESCAUT. AND A RAPIER-THRUST
+
+
+Beverley's absence was not noticed by Hamilton until late on the
+following day, and even then he scouted Helm's suggestion that the
+young man was possibly carrying out his threat to disregard his parole.
+
+"He would be quite justified in doing it; you know that very well,"
+said Helm with a laugh, "and he's just the man to undertake what is
+impossible. Of course, however, he'll get scalped for his trouble, and
+that will cost you something, I'm happy to say."
+
+"It's a matter of small importance," Hamilton replied; "but I'll wager
+you the next toddy that he's not at the present moment a half-mile from
+this spot. He may be a fool, I readily grant that he is, but even a
+fool is not going to set out alone in this kind of weather to go to
+where your rebel friends are probably toasting their shins by a fire of
+green logs and half starving over yonder on the Mississippi."
+
+"Joking aside, you are doubtless right. Beverley is hot-headed, and if
+he could he'd get even with you devilish quick; but he hasn't left
+Vincennes, I think. Miss Roussillon would keep him here if the place
+were on fire!"
+
+Hamilton laughed dryly. He had thought just what Helm was saying.
+Beverley's attentions to Alice had not escaped his notice.
+
+"Speaking of that girl," he remarked after a moment's silence, "what am
+I do to do with her? There's no place to keep her, and Farnsworth
+insists that she wasn't to blame." He chuckled again and added:
+
+"It's true as gospel. He's in love with her, too. Seems to be glad she
+shot him. Says he's ashamed of himself for ever suspecting her of
+anything but being a genuine angel. Why, he's got as flabby as a rabbit
+and mumbles like a fool!"
+
+"Same as you or I at his age," said Helm, taking a chew of tobacco.
+"She IS a pretty thing. Beverley don't know his foot from his
+shoulder-blade when she's anywhere near him. Boys are boys. I'm a sort
+of a boy myself."
+
+"If she'd give up that flag he'd let her go," said Hamilton. "I hate
+like the devil to confine her; it looks brutal, and makes me feel like
+a tyrant."
+
+"Have you ever happened to notice the obvious fact, Governor Hamilton,
+that Alice Roussillon and Father Beret are not all the French in
+Vincennes?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that I don't for a moment believe that either the girl or the
+priest knows a thing about where that flag is. They are both as
+truthful and honorable as people ever get to be. I know them. Somebody
+else got that flag from under the priest's floor. You may depend upon
+that. If Miss Roussillon knew where it is she'd say so, and then dare
+you to make her tell where it's hidden."
+
+"Oh, the whole devilish town is rotten with treason; that's very clear.
+There's not a loyal soul in it outside of my forces."
+
+"Thank you for not including me among the loyalists."
+
+"Humph, I spoke of these French people; they pretend to be true; but I
+believe they are all traitors."
+
+"You can manage them if you try. A little jolly kindness goes a long
+way with 'em. _I_ had no trouble while _I_ held the town."
+
+Hamilton bit his lip and was silent. Helm was exasperatingly good
+tempered, and his jocularity was irresistible. While he was yet
+speaking a guard came up followed by Jean, the hunchback, and saluting
+said to Hamilton:
+
+"The lad wants to see the young lady, sir."
+
+Hamilton gazed quizzically at Jean, who planted himself in his habitual
+attitude before him and stared up into his face with the grotesque
+expression which seems to be characteristic of hunchbacks and unfledged
+birds--the look of an embodied and hideous joke.
+
+"Well, sir, what will you have?" the Governor demanded.
+
+"I want to see Alice, if you please."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I want to give her a book to read."
+
+"Ah, indeed. Where is it? Let me see it."
+
+Jean took from the breast of his loose jerkin a small volume, dog-eared
+and mildewed, and handed it to Hamilton. Meantime he stood first on one
+foot, then the other, gnawing his thumb-nail and blinking rapidly.
+
+"Well, Helm, just look here!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Manon Lescaut."
+
+"And what's that?"
+
+"Haven't you ever read it?"
+
+"Read what?"
+
+"This novel--Manon Lescaut."
+
+"Never read a novel in my life. Never expect to."
+
+Hamilton laughed freely at Helm's expense, then turned to Jean and gave
+him back the book.
+
+It would have been quite military, had he taken the precaution to
+examine between the pages for something hidden there, but he did not.
+
+"Go, give it to her," he said, "and tell her I send my compliments,
+with great admiration of her taste in literature." He motioned the
+soldier to show Jean to Alice. "It's a beastly French story," he added,
+addressing Helm; "immoral enough to make a pirate blush. That's the
+sort of girl Mademoiselle Roussillon is!"
+
+"I don't care what kind of a book she reads," blurted Helm, "she's a
+fine, pure, good girl. Everybody likes her. She's the good angel of
+this miserable frog-hole of a town. You'd like her yourself, if you'd
+straighten up and quit burning tow in your brain all the time. You're
+always so furious about something that you never have a chance to be
+just to yourself, or pleasant to anybody else."
+
+Hamilton turned fiercely on Helm, but a glimpse of the Captain's broad
+good-humored face heartily smiling, dispelled his anger. There was no
+ground upon which to maintain a quarrel with a person so persistently
+genial and so absurdly frank. And in fact Hamilton was not half so bad
+as his choleric manifestations seemed to make him out. Besides, Helm
+knew just how far to go, just when to stop.
+
+"If I had got furious at you every time there was overwhelming
+provocation for it," Hamilton said, "you'd have been long since hanged
+or shot. I fancy that I have shown angelic forbearance. I've given you
+somewhat more than a prisoner's freedom."
+
+"So you have, so you have," assented Helm. "I've often been surprised
+at your generous partiality in my case. Let's have some hot water with
+something else in it, what do you say? I won't give you any more advice
+for five minutes by your watch."
+
+"But I want some advice at once."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"That girl."
+
+"Turn her loose. That's easy and reputable."
+
+"I'll have to, I presume; but she ought to be punished."
+
+"If you'll think less about punishment, revenge and getting even with
+everybody and everything, you'll soon begin to prosper."
+
+Hamilton winced, but smiled as one quite sure of himself.
+
+Jean followed the soldier to a rickety log pen on the farther side of
+the stockade, where he found the prisoner restlessly moving about like
+a bird in a rustic cage. It had no comforts, that gloomy little room.
+There was no fireplace, the roof leaked, and the only furniture
+consisted of a bench to sit on and a pile of skins for bed. Alice
+looked charmingly forlorn peeping out of the wraps in which she was
+bundled against the cold, her hair fluffed and rimpled in shining
+disorder around her face.
+
+The guard let Jean in and closed the door, himself staying outside.
+
+Alice was as glad to see the poor lad as if they had been parted for a
+year. She hugged him and kissed his drawn little face.
+
+"You dear, good Jean!" she murmured, "you did not forget me."
+
+"I brought you something," he whispered, producing the book.
+
+Alice snatched it, looked at it, and then at Jean.
+
+"Why, what did you bring this for? you silly Jean! I didn't want this.
+I don't like this book at all. It's hateful. I despise it. Take it
+back."
+
+"There's something in it for you, a paper with writing on it;
+Lieutenant Beverley wrote it on there. It's shut up between the leaves
+about the middle."
+
+"Sh-s-sh! not so loud, the guard'll hear you," Alice breathlessly
+whispered, her whole manner changing instantly. She was trembling, and
+the color had been whisked from her face, as the flame from a candle in
+a sudden draught.
+
+She found the note and read it a dozen times without a pause, her eyes
+leaping along the lines back and forth with pathetic eagerness and
+concentration. Presently she sat down on the bench and covered her face
+with her hands. A tremor first, then a convulsive sobbing, shook her
+collapsed form. Jean regarded her with a drolly sympathetic grimace,
+elevating his long chin and letting his head settle back between his
+shoulders.
+
+"Oh, Jean, Jean!" she cried at last, looking up and reaching out her
+arms; "O Jean, he is gone, gone, gone!"
+
+Jean stepped closer to her while she sobbed again like a little child.
+
+She pulled him to her and held him tightly against her breast while she
+once more read the note through blinding tears. The words were few, but
+to her they bore the message of desolation and despair. A great,
+haunting, hollow voice in her heart repeated them until they echoed
+from vague distance to distance.
+
+It was written with a bit of lead on the half of a mildewed fly-leaf
+torn from the book:
+
+
+"Dear Alice:
+
+"I am going away. When you read this, think of me as hurrying through
+the wilderness to reach our army and bring it here. Be brave, as you
+always have been; be good, as you cannot help being; wait and watch for
+me; love me, as I love you. I will come. Do not doubt it, I will come,
+and I will crush Hamilton and his command. Courage, Alice dear;
+courage, and wait for me.
+
+"Faithfully ever,
+  "Beverley."
+
+
+She kissed the paper with passionate fervor, pouring her tears upon it
+in April showers between which the light of her eyes played almost
+fiercely, so poignant was her sense of a despair which bordered upon
+desperation. "Gone, gone!" It was all she could think or say. "Gone,
+gone."
+
+Jean took the offending novel back home with him, hidden under his
+jerkin; but Beverley's note lay upon Alice's heart, a sweet comfort and
+a crushing weight, when an hour later Hamilton sent for her and she was
+taken before him. Her face was stained with tears and she looked
+pitifully distressed and disheveled; yet despite all this her beauty
+asserted itself with subtle force.
+
+Hamilton felt ashamed looking at her, but put on sternness and spoke
+without apparent sympathy:
+
+"Miss Roussillon, you came near committing a great crime. As it is, you
+have done badly enough; but I wish not to be unreasonably severe. I
+hope you are sorry for your act, and feel like doing better hereafter."
+
+She was trembling, but her eyes looked steadily straight into his. They
+were eyes of baby innocence, yet they irradiated a strong womanly
+spirit just touched with the old perverse, mischievous light which she
+could neither banish nor control. When she did not make reply, Hamilton
+continued:
+
+"You may go home now, and I shall expect to have no more trouble on
+your account." He made a gesture indicative of dismissal; then, as she
+turned from him, he added, somewhat raising his voice:
+
+"And further, Miss Roussillon, that flag you took from here must
+positively be returned. See that it is done."
+
+She lifted her head high and walked away, not deigning to give him a
+word.
+
+"Humph! what do you think now of your fine young lady?" he demanded,
+turning to Helm with a sneering curl of his mouth. "She gives thanks
+copiously for a kindness, don't you think?"
+
+"Poor girl, she was scared nearly out of her life," said Helm. "She got
+away from you, like a wounded bird from a snare. I never saw a face
+more pitiful than hers."
+
+"Much pity she needs, and greatly like a wounded bird she acts, I must
+say; but good riddance if she'll keep her place hereafter. I despise
+myself when I have to be hard with a woman, especially a pretty one.
+That girl's a saucy and fascinating minx, and as dangerous as twenty
+men. I'll keep a watch on her movements from this on, and if she gets
+into mischief again I'll transport her to Detroit, or give her away to
+the Indians, She must stop her high-handed foolishness."
+
+Helm saw that Hamilton was talking mere wind, VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL,
+and he furthermore felt that his babbling signified no harm to Alice;
+but Hamilton surprised him presently by saying:
+
+"I have just learned that Lieutenant Beverley is actually gone. Did you
+know of his departure?"
+
+"What are you saying, sir?"
+
+Helm jumped to his feet, not angry, but excited.
+
+"Keep cool, you need not answer if you prefer silence or evasion. You
+may want to go yourself soon."
+
+Helm burst out laughing, but quickly growing serious said:
+
+"Has Beverley been such a driveling fool as that? Are you in earnest?"
+
+"He killed two of my scouts, wounded another, and crossed the Wabash in
+their canoe. He is going straight towards Kaskaskia."
+
+"The idiot! Hurrah for him! If you catch your hare you may roast him,
+but catch him first, Governor!"
+
+"You'll joke out of the other corner of your mouth, Captain Helm, if I
+find out that you gave him aid or countenance in breaking his parole."
+
+"Aid or countenance! I never saw him after he walked out of this room.
+You gave him a devil of a sight more aid and countenance than I did.
+What are you talking about! Broke his parole! He did no such thing. He
+returned it to you fairly, as you well know. He told you he was going."
+
+"Well, I've sent twenty of my swiftest Indians after him to bring him
+back. I'll let you see him shot. That ought to please you."
+
+"They'll never get him, Governor. I'll bet high on him against your
+twenty scalp-lifters any day. Fitzhugh Beverley is the best Indian
+fighter, Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton excepted, in the American
+colonies."
+
+On her way home Alice met Father Beret, who turned and walked beside
+her. He was so overjoyed at her release that he could scarcely speak;
+but held her hand and stroked it gently while she told him her story.
+It was beginning to rain, a steady, cold shower, when they reached the
+house, and for many days and nights thereafter the downfall continued
+almost incessantly.
+
+"Dear child," said Father Beret, stopping at the gate and looking
+beseechingly into Alice's face, "you must stay at home now--stay in the
+house--it will be horribly dangerous for you to pass about in the
+village after your--after what has happened."
+
+"Do not fear, Father, I will be careful. Aren't you coming in? I'll
+find you a cake and a glass of wine."
+
+"No, child, not now."
+
+"Then good-bye, good-bye," she said, turning from him to run into the
+house. "Come soon, I shall be so lonesome."
+
+On the veranda she suddenly stopped, running her fingers about her neck
+and into her bosom.
+
+"Oh, Father, Father Beret, I've lost my locket!" she cried. "See if I
+dropped it there."
+
+She went back to the gate, searching the ground with her eyes. Of
+course she did not find the locket. It was miles and miles away close
+to the heart of her lover. If she could but have known this, it would
+have comforted her. Beverley had intended to leave it with Jean, but in
+his haste and excitement he forgot; writing the note distracted his
+attention; and so he bore Alice's picture on his breast and in his
+heart while pursuing his long and perilous journey.
+
+Four of Hamilton's scouts came upon Beverley twenty miles south of
+Vincennes, but having the advantage of them, he killed two almost
+immediately, and after a running fight, the other two attempted escape
+in a canoe on the Wabash. Here, firing from a bluff, he wounded a
+third. Both then plunged head-foremost into the water, and by keeping
+below the surface, got away. The adventure gave Beverley new spirit and
+self-reliance; he felt that he could accomplish anything necessary to
+his undertaking. In the captured pirogue he crossed the river, and, to
+make his trail hard to find, sent the little craft adrift down the
+current.
+
+Then alone, in the dead of winter, he took his bearings and struck
+across the dreary, houseless plain toward St. Louis.
+
+As soon as Hamilton's discomfited scouts reported to him, he sent
+Long-Hair with twenty picked savages, armed and supplied for continuous
+and rapid marching, in pursuit of Beverley. There was a large reward
+for bringing him in alive, a smaller one for his scalp.
+
+When Alice heard of all this, her buoyant and happy nature seemed
+entirely to desert her for a time. She was proud to find out that
+Beverley had shown himself brave and capable; it touched her love of
+heroism; but she knew too much about Indian warfare to hope that he
+could hold his own against Long-Hair, the wiliest and boldest of
+scalp-hunters, and twenty of the most experienced braves in Hamilton's
+forces. He would almost certainly be killed and scalped, or captured
+and brought back to be shot or hanged in Vincennes. The thought chilled
+and curdled her blood.
+
+Both Helm and Father Beret tried to encourage and comfort her by
+representing the probabilities in the fairest light.
+
+"It's like hunting for a needle in a haystack, going out to find a man
+in that wilderness," said Helm with optimistic cheerfulness; "and
+besides Beverley is no easy dose for twenty red niggers to take. I've
+seen him tried at worse odds than that, and he got out with a whole
+skin, too. Don't you fret about him, Miss Roussillon."
+
+Little help came to her from attempts of this sort. She might brighten
+up for a while, but the dark dread, and the terrible gnawing at her
+heart, the sinking and despairing in her soul, could not be cured.
+
+What added immeasurably to her distress was the attention of
+Farnsworth, whose wound troubled him but a short time. He seemed to
+have had a revelation and a change of spirit since the unfortunate
+rencounter and the subsequent nursing at Alice's hands. He was grave,
+earnest, kindly, evidently striving to play a gentle and honorable
+part. She could feel that he carried a load of regret, that he wanted
+to pay a full price in good for the evil that he had done; his sturdy
+English heart was righting itself nobly, yet she but half understood
+him, until his actions and words began to betray his love; and then she
+hated him unreasonably. Realizing this, Farnsworth bore himself more
+like a faithful dog than in the manner hitherto habitual to him. He
+simply shadowed Alice and would not be rebuffed.
+
+There can be nothing more painful to a finely sympathetic nature than
+regret for having done a kindness. Alice experienced this to the
+fullest degree. She had nursed Farnsworth but a little while, yet it
+was a while of sweet influence. Her tender woman nature felt the
+blessedness of doing good to her enemy lying helpless in her house and
+hurt by her own hand. But now she hated the man, and with all her soul
+she was sorry that she had been kind to him; for out of her kindness he
+had drawn the spell of a love under which he lived a new life, and all
+for her. Yet deep down in her consciousness the pity and the pathos of
+the thing hovered gloomily and would not be driven out.
+
+The rain in mid-winter gave every prospect a sad, cold, sodden gray
+appearance. The ground was soaked, little rills ran in the narrow
+streets, the small streams became great rivers, the Wabash overflowed
+its banks and made a sea of all the lowlands on either side. It was
+hard on the poor dwellers in the thatched and mostly floorless cabins,
+for the grass roofs gradually let the water through and puddles formed
+on the ground inside. Fuel was distant and had to be hauled in the
+pouring rain; provisions were scarce and hunting almost impossible.
+Many people, especially children, were taken ill with colds and fever.
+Alice found some relief from her trouble in going from cabin to cabin
+and waiting upon the sufferers; but even here Farnsworth could not be
+got rid of; he followed her night and day. Never was a good soldier,
+for he was that from head to foot, more lovelorn and love-docile. The
+maiden had completely subdued the man.
+
+About this time, deep in a rainy and pitch-black night, Gaspard
+Roussillon came home. He tapped on the door again and again. Alice
+heard, but she hesitated to speak or move. Was she growing cowardly?
+Her heart beat like a drum. There was but one person in all the world
+that she could think of--it was not M. Roussillon. Ah, no, she had
+well-nigh forgotten her gigantic foster father.
+
+"It is I, ma cherie, it is Gaspard, my love, open the door," came in a
+booming half-whisper from without. "Alice, Jean, it is your Papa
+Roussillon, my dears. Let me in."
+
+Alice was at the door in a minute, unbarring it. M. Roussillon entered,
+armed to the teeth, the water dribbling from his buckskin clothes.
+
+"Pouf!" he exclaimed, "my throat is like dust." His thoughts were
+diving into the stores under the floor. "I am famished. Dear children,
+dear little ones! They are glad to see papa! Where is your mama?"
+
+He had Alice in his arms and Jean clung to his legs. Madame Roussillon,
+to be sure of no mistake, lighted a lamp with a brand that smoldered on
+the hearth and held it up, then, satisfied as to her husband's
+identity, set it on a shelf and flung herself into the affectionate
+group with clumsy abandon, making a great noise.
+
+"Oh, my dear Gaspard!" she cried as she lunged forward. "Gaspard,
+Gaspard!" Her voice fairly lifted the roof; her great weight, hurled
+with such force, overturned everybody, and all of them tumbled in a
+heap, the rotund and solid dame sitting on top.
+
+"Ouf! not so impetuous, my dear," puffed M. Roussillon, freeing himself
+from her unpleasant pressure and scrambling to his feet. "Really you
+must have fared well in my absence, Madame, you are much heavier." He
+laughed and lifted her up as if she had been a child, kissing her
+resonantly.
+
+His gun had fallen with a great clatter. He took it from the floor and
+examined it to see if it had been injured, then set it in a corner.
+
+"I am afraid we have been making too much noise," said Alice, speaking
+very low. "There is a patrol guard every night now. If they should hear
+you--"
+
+"Shh!" whispered M. Roussillon, "we will be very still. Alice, is there
+something to eat and a drop of wine handy? I have come many miles; I am
+tired, hungry, thirsty,--ziff!"
+
+Alice brought some cold roast venison, a loaf, and a bottle of claret.
+These she set before him on a little table.
+
+"Ah, this is comfort," he said after he had gulped a full cup. "Have
+you all been well?"
+
+Then he began to tell where he had been, what he had seen, and the many
+things he had done. A Frenchman must babble while he eats and drinks. A
+little wine makes him eloquent. He talks with his hands, shoulders,
+eyes. Madame Roussillon, Alice and Jean, wrapped in furs, huddled
+around him to hear. He was very entertaining, and they forgot the
+patrol until a noise startled them. It was the low of a cow. They
+laughed and the master of the house softened his voice.
+
+M. Roussillon had been the guest of a great Indian chieftain, who was
+called the "Gate of the Wabash," because he controlled the river. The
+chief was an old acquaintance and treated him well.
+
+"But I wanted to see you all," Gaspard said. "I was afraid something
+might have happened to you. So I came back just to peep in. I can't
+stay, of course; Hamilton would kill me as if I were a wolf. I can
+remain but an hour and then slip out of town again before daylight
+conies. The rain and darkness are my friends."
+
+He had seen Simon Kenton, who said he had been in the neighborhood of
+Vincennes acting as a scout and spy for Clark. Presently and quite
+casually he added:
+
+"And I saw Lieutenant Beverley, too. I suppose you know that he has
+escaped from Hamilton, and--" Here a big mouthful of venison interfered.
+
+Alice leaned toward him white and breathless, her heart standing still.
+
+Then the door, which had been left unbarred, was flung open and, along
+with a great rush of wind and rain, the patrol guard, five in number,
+sprang in.
+
+M. Roussillon reached his gun with one hand, with the other swung a
+tremendous blow as he leaped against the intruders. Madame Roussillon
+blew out the light. No cave in the depth of earth was ever darker than
+that room. The patrolmen could not see one another or know what to do;
+but M. Roussillon laid about him with the strength of a giant. His
+blows sounded as if they smashed bones. Men fell heavily thumping on
+the floor where he rushed along. Some one fired a pistol and by its
+flash they all saw him; but instantly the darkness closed again, and
+before they could get their bearings he was out and gone, his great
+hulking form making its way easily over familiar ground where his
+would-be captors could have proceeded but slowly, even with a light to
+guide them. There was furious cursing among the patrolmen as they
+tumbled about in the room, the unhurt ones trampling their prostrate
+companions and striking wildly at each other in their blindness and
+confusion. At last one of them bethought him to open a dark lantern
+with which the night guards were furnished. Its flame was fluttering
+and gave forth a pale red light that danced weirdly on the floors and
+walls.
+
+Alice had snatched down one of her rapiers when the guards first
+entered. They now saw her facing them with her slender blade leveled,
+her back to the wall, her eyes shining dangerously. Madame Roussillon
+had fled into the adjoining room. Jean had also disappeared. The
+officer, a subaltern, in charge of the guard, seeing Alice, and not
+quickly able to make out that it was a woman thus defying him, crossed
+swords with her. There was small space for action; moreover the officer
+being not in the least a swordsman, played awkwardly, and quick as a
+flash his point was down. The rapier entered just below his thread with
+a dull chucking stab. He leaped backward, feeling at the same time a
+pair of arms clasp his legs. It was Jean, and the Lieutenant, thus
+unexpectedly tangled, fell to the floor, breaking but not extinguishing
+the guard's lantern as he went down. The little remaining oil spread
+and flamed up brilliantly, as if eager for conflagration, sputtering
+along the uneven boards.
+
+"Kill that devil!" cried the Lieutenant, in a strangling voice, while
+trying to regain his feet. "Shoot! Bayonet!"
+
+In his pain, rage and haste, he inadvertently set his hand in the midst
+of the blazing oil, which clung to the flesh with a seething grip.
+
+"Hell!" he screamed, "fire, fire!"
+
+Two or three bayonets were leveled upon Alice. Some one kicked Jean
+clean across the room, and he lay there curled up in his hairy
+night-wrap looking like an enormous porcupine.
+
+At this point a new performer came upon the stage, a dark-robed thing,
+so active that its outlines changed elusively, giving it no
+recognizable features. It might have been the devil himself, or some
+terrible unknown wild animal clad somewhat to resemble a man, so far as
+the startled guards could make out. It clawed right and left, hurled
+one of them against the wall, dashed another through the door into
+Madame Roussillon's room, where the good woman was wailing at the top
+of her voice, and felled a third with a stroke like that of a bear's
+paw.
+
+Consternation was at high tide when Farnsworth, who always slept with
+an ear open, reached Roussillon place and quickly quieted things. He
+was troubled beyond expression when he found out the true state of the
+affair, for there was nothing that he could do but arrest Alice and
+take her to Hamilton. It made his heart sink. He would have thought
+little of ordering a file of soldiers to shoot a man under the same
+conditions; but to subject her again to the Governor's stern
+cruelty--how could he do it? This time there would be no hope for her.
+
+Alice stood before him flushed, disheveled, defiant, sword in hand,
+beautiful and terrible as an angel. The black figure, man or devil, had
+disappeared as strangely as it had come. The sub-Lieutenant was having
+his slight wound bandaged. Men were raging and cursing under their
+breath, rubbing their bruised heads and limbs.
+
+"Alice--Mademoiselle Roussillon, I am so sorry for this," said Captain
+Farnsworth. "It is painful, terrible--"
+
+He could not go on, but stood before her unmanned. In the feeble light
+his face was wan and his hurt shoulder, still in bandages, drooped
+perceptibly.
+
+"I surrender to you," she presently said in French, extending the hilt
+of her rapier to him. "I had to defend myself when attacked by your
+Lieutenant there. If an officer finds it necessary to set upon a girl
+with his sword, may not the girl guard her life if she can?"
+
+She was short of breath, so that her voice palpitated with a touching
+plangency that shook the man's heart.
+
+Farnsworth accepted the sword; he could do nothing less. His duty
+admitted of no doubtful consideration; yet he hesitated, feeling around
+in his mind for a phrase with which to evade the inevitable.
+
+"It will be safer for you at the fort, Mademoiselle; let me take you
+there."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS
+
+
+Beverley set out on his mid-winter journey to Kaskaskia with a tempest
+in his heart, and it was, perhaps, the storm's energy that gave him the
+courage to face undaunted and undoubting what his experience must have
+told him lay in his path. He was young and strong; that meant a great
+deal; he had taken the desperate chances of Indian warfare many times
+before this, and the danger counted as nothing, save that it offered
+the possibility of preventing him from doing the one thing in life he
+now cared to do. What meant suffering to him, if he could but rescue
+Alice? And what were life should he fail to rescue her? The old, old
+song hummed in his heart, every phrase of it distinct above the tumult
+of the storm. Could cold and hunger, swollen streams, ravenous wild
+beasts and scalp-hunting savages baffle him? No, there is no barrier
+that can hinder love. He said this over and over to himself after his
+rencounter with the four Indian scouts on the Wabash. He repeated it
+with every heart-beat until he fell in with some friendly red men, who
+took him to their camp, where to his great surprise he met M.
+Roussillon. It was his song when again he strode off toward the west on
+his lonely way.
+
+We need not follow him step by step; the monotony of the woods and
+prairies, the cold rains, alternating with northerly winds and blinding
+snow, the constant watchfulness necessary to guard against a meeting
+with hostile savages, the tiresome tramping, wading and swimming, the
+hunger, the broken and wretched sleep in frozen and scant wraps,--why
+detail it all?
+
+There was but one beautiful thing about it--the beauty of Alice as she
+seemed to walk beside him and hover near him in his dreams. He did not
+know that Long-Hair and his band were fast on his track; but the
+knowledge could not have urged him to greater haste. He strained every
+muscle to its utmost, kept every nerve to the highest tension. Yonder
+towards the west was help for Alice; that was all he cared for.
+
+But if Long-Hair was pursuing him with relentless greed for the reward
+offered by Hamilton, there were friendly footsteps still nearer behind
+him; and one day at high noon, while he was bending over a little fire,
+broiling some liberal cuts of venison, a finger tapped him on the
+shoulder. He sprang up and grappled Oncle Jazon; at the same time,
+standing near by, he saw Simon Kenton, his old-time Kentucky friend.
+The pungled features of one and the fine, rugged face of the other swam
+as in a mist before Beverley's eyes. Kenton was laughing quietly, his
+strong, upright form shaking to the force of his pleasure. He was in
+the early prime of a vigorous life, not handsome, but strikingly
+attractive by reason of a certain glow in his face and a kindly flash
+in his deep-set eyes.
+
+"Well, well, my boy!" he exclaimed, laying his left hand on Beverley's
+shoulder, while in the other he held a long, heavy rifle. "I'm glad to
+see ye, glad to see ye."
+
+"Thought we was Injuns, eh?" said Oncle Jazon. "An' ef we had 'a' been
+we'd 'a' been shore o' your scalp!" The wizzened old creole cackled
+gleefully.
+
+"And where are ye goin'?" demanded Kenton. "Ye're making what lacks a
+heap o' bein' a bee-line for some place or other."
+
+Beverley was dazed and vacant-minded; things seemed wavering and dim.
+He pushed the two men from him and gazed at them without speaking.
+Their presence and voices did not convince him.
+
+"Yer meat's a burnin'," said Oncle Jazon, stooping to turn it on the
+smouldering coals. "Ye must be hungry. Cookin' enough for a regiment."
+
+Kenton shook Beverley with rough familiarity, as if to rouse his
+faculties.
+
+"What's the matter? Fitz, my lad, don't ye know Si Kenton? It's not so
+long since we were like brothers, and now ye don't speak to me! Ye've
+not forgot me, Fitz!"
+
+"Mebby he don't like ye as well as ye thought he did," drawled Oncle
+Jazon. "I HEV known o' fellers a bein' mistaken jes' thet way."
+
+Beverley got his wits together as best he could, taking in the
+situation by such degrees as seemed at the time unduly slow, but which
+were really mere momentary falterings.
+
+"Why, Kenton! Jazon!" he presently exclaimed, a cordial gladness
+blending with his surprise. "How did you get here? Where did you come
+from?"
+
+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 pronunciation 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 assented, "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
+Godere 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
+Godere had told the whole story with flamboyant embellishments; Kenton
+tiad seen Alice, and, inspired with the gossip and a surreptitious
+glimpse of her beauty, he felt perfectly familiar with Beverley's
+condition. He was himself a victim of the tender passion 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 nobody 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 embarrassment 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 assumed 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.
+
+Quite beyond gunshot range, but near enough for Oncle Jazon to
+recognize Long-Hair as their leader, the Indians halted and began
+making signs to one another all round the line. Evidently they dreaded
+to test the marksmanship of such riflemen as they knew most border men
+to be. Indeed, Long-Hair had personal knowledge of what might certainly
+be expected from both Kenton and Oncle Jazon; they were terrible when
+out for fight; the red warriors from Georgia to the great lakes had
+heard of them; their names smacked of tragedy. Nor was Beverley without
+fame among Long-Hair's followers, who had listened to the story of his
+fighting qualities, brought to Vincennes by the two survivors of the
+scouting party so cleverly defeated by him.
+
+"The liver-colored cowards," said Kenton, "are afeared of us in a
+shootin'-match; they know that a lot of 'em would have to die if they
+should undertake an open fight with us. It's some sort of a sneakin'
+game they are studyin' about just now."
+
+"I'm a gittin' mos' too ole to shoot wo'th a cent," said Oncle Jazon,
+"but I'd give half o' my scalp ef thet Long-Hair would come clost
+enough fo' me to git a bead onto his lef' eye. It's tol'ble plain 'at
+we're gone goslins this time, I'm thinkin'; still it'd be mighty
+satisfyin' if I could plug out a lef' eye or two 'fore I go."
+
+Beverley was silent; the words of his companions were heard by him, but
+not noticed. Nothing interested him save the thought of escaping and
+making his way to Clark. To fail meant infinitely more than death, of
+which he had as small fear as most brave men, and to succeed meant
+everything that life could offer. So, in the unlimited selfishness of
+love, he did not take his companions into account.
+
+The three stood in a close-set clump of four or five scrub oaks at the
+highest point of a thinly wooded knoll that sloped down in all
+directions to the prairie. Their view was wide, but in places
+obstructed by the trees.
+
+"Men," said Kenton, after a thoughtful and watchful silence, "the thing
+looks kind o' squally for us. I don't see much of a chance to get out
+of this alive; but we've got to try."
+
+He showed by the density of his voice and a certain gray film in his
+face that he felt the awful gravity of the situation; but he was calm
+and not a muscle quivered.
+
+"They's jes' two chances for us," said Oncle Jazon, "an' them's as slim
+as a broom straw. We've got to stan' here an' fight it out, or wait
+till night an' sneak through atween 'em an' run for it."
+
+"I don't see any hope o' sneakin' through the line," observed Kenton.
+"It's not goin' to be dark tonight."
+
+"Wa-a-l," Oncle Jazon drawled nonchalantly while he took in a quid of
+tobacco, "I've been into tighter squeezes 'an this, many a time, an' I
+got out, too."
+
+"Likely enough," said Kenton, still reflecting while his eyes roamed
+around the circle of savages.
+
+"I fit the skunks in Ferginny 'fore you's thought of, Si Kenton, an'
+down in Car'lina in them hills. If ye think I'm a goin' to be scalped
+where they ain't no scalp, 'ithout tryin' a few dodges, yer a dad
+dasteder fool an' I used to think ye was, an' that's makin' a big
+compliment to ye."
+
+"Well, we don't have to argy this question, Oncle Jazon; they're a
+gittin' ready to run in upon us, and we've got to fight. I say,
+Beverley, are ye ready for fast shootin'? Have ye got a plenty of
+bullets?"
+
+"Yes, Roussillon gave me a hundred. Do you think--"
+
+He was interrupted by a yell that leaped from savage mouth to mouth all
+round the circle, and then the charge began.
+
+"Steady, now," growled Kenton, "let's not be in a hurry. Wait till they
+come nigh enough to hit 'em before we shoot."
+
+The time was short; for the Indians came on at almost race-horse speed.
+
+Oncle Jazon fired first, the long, keen crack of his small-bore rifle
+splitting the air with a suggestion of vicious energy, and a lithe
+young warrior, who was outstripping all his fellows, leaped high and
+fell paralyzed.
+
+"Can't shoot wo'th a cent," muttered the old man, deftly beginning to
+reload his gun the while; "but I jes' happened to hit that buck. He'll
+never git my scalp, thet's sartin an' sure."
+
+Beverley and Kenton each likewise dropped an Indian; but the shots did
+not even check the rush. Long-Hair had planned to capture his prey, not
+kill it. Every savage had his orders to take the white men alive;
+Hamilton's larger reward depended on this.
+
+Right on they came, as fast as their nimble legs could carry them,
+yelling like demons; and they reached the grove before the three white
+men could reload their guns. Then every warrior took cover behind a
+tree and began scrambling forward from bole to bole, thus approaching
+rapidly without much exposure.
+
+"Our 'taters is roasted brown," muttered Oncle Jazon. He crossed
+himself. Possibly he prayed; but he was priming his old gun the next
+instant.
+
+Kenton fired again, making a hurried and ineffectual attempt to stop
+the nearest warrior, who saved himself by quickly skipping behind a
+tree. Beverley's gun snapped, the flint failing to make fire; but Oncle
+Jazon bored a little hole through the head of the Indian nearest him;
+and then the final rush was made from every direction.
+
+A struggle ensued, which for desperate energy has probably never been
+surpassed. Like three lions at bay, the white men met the shock, and
+lion-like they fought in the midst of seventeen stalwart and determined
+savages.
+
+"Don't kill them, take them alive; throw them down and hold them!" was
+Long-Hair's order loudly shouted in the tongue of his tribe.
+
+Both Kenton and Jazon understood every word and knew the significance
+of such a command from the leader. It naturally came into Kenton's mind
+that Hamilton had been informed of his visit to Vincennes and had
+offered a reward for his capture. This being true, death as a spy would
+be the certain result if he were taken back. He might as well die now.
+As for Beverley, he thought only of Alice, yonder as he had left her, a
+prisoner in Hamilton's hands, Oncle Jazon, if he thought at all,
+probably considered nothing but present escape, though he prayed
+audibly to the Blessed Virgin, even while he lay helpless upon the
+ground, pinned down by the weight of an enormous Indian. He could not
+move any part of himself, save his lips, and these mechanically put
+forth the wheezing supplication.
+
+Beverley and Kenton, being young and powerful, were not so easily
+mastered. For a while, indeed, they appeared to be more than holding
+their own. They time and time again scattered the entire crowd by the
+violence of their muscular efforts; and after it had finally closed in
+upon them in a solid body they swayed and swung it back and forth and
+round and round until the writhing, savage mass looked as if caught in
+the vortex of a whirlwind. But such tremendous exertion could not last
+long. Eight to one made too great a difference between the contending
+parties, and the only possible conclusion of the struggle soon came.
+Seized upon by desperate, clinging, wolf-like assailants, the white men
+felt their arms, legs and bodies weighted down and their strength fast
+going.
+
+Kenton fell next after Oncle Jazon, and was soon tightly bound with
+rawhide thongs. He lay on his back panting and utterly exhausted, while
+Beverley still kept up the unequal fight.
+
+Long-Hair sprang in at the last moment to make doubly certain the
+securing of his most important captive. He flung his long and powerful
+arms around Beverley from behind and made a great effort to throw him
+upon the ground. The young man, feeling this fresh and vigorous clasp,
+turned himself about to put forth one more mighty spurt of power. He
+lifted the stalwart Indian bodily and dashed him headlong against the
+buttressed root of a tree half a rod distant, breaking the smaller bone
+of his left fore-arm and well-nigh knocking him senseless.
+
+It was a fine exhibition of manly strength; but there could be nothing
+gained by it. A blow on the back of his head the next instant stretched
+Beverley face downward and unconscious on the ground. The savages
+turned him over and looked satisfied when they found that he was not
+dead. They bound him with even greater care than they had shown in
+securing the others, while Long-Hair stood by stolidly looking on,
+meantime supporting his broken fore-arm in his hand.
+
+"Ugh! dog!" he grunted, and gave Beverley a kick in the side. Then
+turning a fiendish stare upon Oncle Jazon he proceeded to deliver
+against his old, dry ribs three or four like contributions with
+resounding effect. "Polecat! Little old greasy woman!" he snarled,
+"make good fire for warrior to dance by!" Kenton also received his full
+share of the kicks and verbal abuse, after which Long-Hair gave orders
+for fires to be built. Then he looked to his hurt arm and had the bone
+set and bandaged, never so much as wincing the while.
+
+It was soon apparent that the Indians purposed to celebrate their
+successful enterprise with a feast. They cooked a large amount of
+buffalo steak; then, each with his hands full of the savory meat, they
+began to dance around the fires, droning meantime an atrociously
+repellant chant.
+
+"They're a 'spectin' to hev a leetle bit o' fun outen us," muttered
+Oncle Jazon to Beverley, who lay near him. "I onderstan' what they're
+up to, dad dast 'em! More'n forty years ago, in Ca'lina, they put me
+an' Jim Hipes through the ga'ntlet, an' arter thet, in Kaintuck, me an'
+Si Kenton tuck the run. Hi, there, Si! where air ye?"
+
+"Shut yer fool mouth," Kenton growled under his breath. "Ye'll have
+that Injun a kickin' our lights out of us again."
+
+Oncle Jazon winked at the gray sky and puckered his mouth so that it
+looked like a nutgall on an old, dry leaf.
+
+"What's the diff'ence?" he demanded. "I'd jest as soon be kicked now as
+arter while; it's got to come anyhow."
+
+Kenton made no response. The thongs were torturing his arms and legs.
+Beverley was silent, but consciousness had returned, and with it a
+sense of despair. All three of the prisoners lay face upward quite
+unable to move, knowing full well that a terrible ordeal awaited them.
+Oncle Jazon's grim humor could not be quenched, even by the galling
+agony of the thongs that buried themselves in the flesh, and the
+anticipation of torture beside which death would seem a luxury.
+
+"Yap! Long-Hair, how's yer arm?" he called jeeringly. "Feels pooty
+good, hay?"
+
+Long-Hair, who was not joining in the dance and song, turned when he
+heard these taunting words, and mistaking whence they came, went to
+Beverley's side and kicked him again and again.
+
+Oncle Jazon heard the loud blows, and considered the incident a
+remarkably good joke.
+
+"He, he, he!" he snickered, as soon as Long-Hair walked away again. "I
+does the talkin' an' somebody else gits the thumpin'! He, he, he! I
+always was devilish lucky. Them kicks was good solid jolts, wasn't
+they, Lieutenant? Sounded like they was. He, he, he!"
+
+Beverley gave no heed to Oncle Jazon's exasperating pleasantry; but
+Kenton, sorely chafing under the pressure of his bonds, could not
+refrain from making retort in kind.
+
+"I'd give ye one poundin' that ye'd remember, Emile Jazon, if I could
+get to ye, ye old twisted-face, peeled-headed, crooked-mouthed,
+aggravatin' scamp!" he exclaimed, not thinking how high his naturally
+strong voice was lifted. "I can stand any fool but a damn fool!"
+
+Long-Hair heard the concluding epithet and understood its meaning.
+Moreover, he thought himself the target at which it was so
+energetically launched. Wherefore he promptly turned back and gave
+Kenton a kicking that made his body resound not unlike a drum.
+
+And here it was that Oncle Jazon overreached himself. He was so
+delighted at Kenton's luck that he broke forth giggling and thereby
+drew against his own ribs a considerable improvement of Long-Hair's
+pedal applications.
+
+"Ventrebleu!" whined the old man, when the Indian had gone away again.
+"Holy Mary! Jee-ru-sa-lem! They's nary bone o' me left 'at's not
+splintered as fine as toothpickers! S'pose yer satisfied now, ain't ye,
+Si Kenton? Ef ye ain't I'm shore to satisfy ye the fust time I git a
+chance at ye, ye blab-mouthed eejit!"
+
+Before this conversation was ended a rain began to fall, and it rapidly
+thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour that
+effectually quenched not only the fires around which the savages were
+dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well. During the rest of
+the afternoon and all night long the fall was incessant, accompanied by
+a cold, panting, wailing southwest wind.
+
+Beverley lay on the ground, face upward, the rawhide strings torturing
+his limbs, the chill of cold water searching his bones. He could see
+nothing but the dim, strange canopy of flying rain, against which the
+bare boughs of the scrub oaks were vaguely outlined; he could hear
+nothing but the cry of the wind and the swash of the water which fell
+upon him and ran under him, bubbling and gurgling as if fiendishly
+exultant.
+
+The night dragged on through its terrible length, dealing out its
+indescribable horrors, and at last morning arrived, with a stingy and
+uncertain gift of light slowly increasing until the dripping trees
+appeared forlornly gray and brown against clouds now breaking into
+masses that gave but little rain.
+
+Beverley lived through the awful trial and even had the hardihood to
+brighten inwardly with the first flash of sunlight that shot through a
+cloud-crack on the eastern horizon. He thought of Alice, as he had done
+all night; but now the thought partook somehow of the glow yonder above
+old Vincennes, although he could only see its reflection.
+
+There was great stir among the Indians. Long-Hair stalked about
+scrutinizing the ground. Beverley saw him come near time and again with
+a hideous, inquiring scowl on his face. Grunts and laconic exclamations
+passed from mouth to mouth, and presently the import of it all could
+not be mistaken. Kenton and Jazon were gone--had escaped during the
+night--and the rain had completely obliterated their tracks.
+
+The Indians were furious. Long-Hair sent out picked parties of his best
+scouts with orders to scour the country in all directions, keeping with
+himself a few of the older warriors. Beverley was fed what he would eat
+of venison, and Long-Hair made him understand that he would have to
+suffer some terrible punishment on account of the action of his
+companions.
+
+Late in the day the scouts straggled back with the report that no track
+or sign of the fugitives had been discovered, and immediately a
+consultation was held. Most of the warriors, including all of the young
+bucks, demanded a torture entertainment as compensation for their
+exertions and the unexpected loss of their own prisoners; for it had
+been agreed that Beverley belonged exclusively to Long-Hair, who
+objected to anything which might deprive him of the great reward
+offered by Hamilton for the prisoner if brought to him alive.
+
+In the end it was agreed that Beverley should be made to run the
+gauntlet, provided that no deadly weapons were used upon him during the
+ordeal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A PRISONER OF LOVE
+
+
+Alice put on her warmest clothes and followed Captain Farnsworth to the
+fort, realizing that no pleasant experience awaited her. The wind and
+rain still prevailed when they were ready to set forth, and, although
+it was not extremely cold, a searching chill went with every throb that
+marked the storm's waves. No lights shone in the village houses.
+Overhead a gray gloom covered stars and sky, making the darkness in the
+watery streets seem densely black. Farnsworth offered Alice his arm,
+but she did not accept it.
+
+"I know the way better than you do," she said. "Come on, and don't be
+afraid that I am going to run. I shall not play any trick on you."
+
+"Very well, Mademoiselle, as you like. I trust you."
+
+He followed her from the house. He was so filled with the bitterness of
+what he was doing that he carried her sword in his hand all the way to
+the fort, quite unaware that its point often touched her dress so that
+she plainly felt it. Indeed, she thought he was using that ruffianly
+and dangerous means of keeping pace with her. He had sent the patrol on
+its rounds, taking upon himself the responsibility of delivering her to
+Hamilton. She almost ran, urged by the strange excitement that burned
+in her heart, and he followed somewhat awkwardly, stumbling over the
+unfamiliar way in the rain and darkness.
+
+At every step he was wishing that she would escape from him. Coarse as
+his nature was and distorted by hardening experiences, it was rooted in
+good English honesty and imbued with a chivalric spirit. When, as
+happened too often, he fell under the influence of liquor, the bad in
+him promptly came uppermost; but at all other times his better traits
+made him a good fellow to meet, genial, polite, generous, and inclined
+to recognize the finer sentiments of manliness. To march into his
+commander's presence with Alice as his prisoner lacked everything of
+agreeing with his taste; yet he had not been willing to give her over
+into the hands of the patrol. If his regard for military obligation had
+not been exceptionally strong, even for an English soldier, he would
+have given way to the temptation of taking her to some place of hiding
+and safety, instead of brutally subjecting her to Hamilton's harsh
+judgment. He anticipated a trying experience for her on account of this
+new transgression.
+
+They hastened along until a lantern in the fort shot a hazy gleam upon
+them.
+
+"Stop a moment, Mademoiselle," Farnsworth called. "I say, Miss
+Roussillon, stop a moment, please."
+
+Alice halted and turned facing him so short and so suddenly that the
+rapier in his hand pricked through her wraps and slightly scratched her
+arm.
+
+"What do you mean, sir?" she demanded, thinking that he had thrust
+purposely. "Do I deserve this brutality?"
+
+"You mistake me, Miss Roussillon. I cannot be brutal to you now. Do not
+fear me; I only had a word to say."
+
+"Oh, you deem it very polite and gentle to jab me with your sword, do
+you? If I had one in my hand you would not dare try such a thing, and
+you know it very well."
+
+He was amazed, not knowing that the sword-point had touched her. He
+could not see her face, but there was a flash in her voice that
+startled him with its indignant contempt and resentment.
+
+"What are you saying, Miss Roussillon? I don't understand you. When did
+I ever--when did I jab you with my sword? I never thought of such a
+thing."
+
+"This moment, sir, you did, and you know you did. My arm is bleeding
+now."
+
+She spoke rapidly in French; but he caught her meaning, and for the
+first became aware of the rapier in his hand. Even then its point was
+toward her and very near her breast. He lowered it instantly while the
+truth rushed into his mind.
+
+"Forgive me," he murmured, his words barely audible in the tumult of
+wind and rain, but charged with the intensest feeling.
+
+"Forgive me; I did not know--it was an accident--I could not do such a
+thing purposely. Believe me, believe me, Miss Roussillon. I did not
+mean it."
+
+She stood facing him, trying to look right into his eyes. A quality in
+his voice had checked her hot anger. She could only see his dim
+outlines in the dull gleam from the fort's lantern. He seemed to be
+forlornly wretched.
+
+"I should like to believe you," she presently said, "but I cannot. You
+English are all, all despicable, mean, vile!"
+
+She was remembering the young officer who had assaulted her with his
+sword in the house a while ago. And (what a strange thing the human
+brain is!) she at the same time comforted herself with the further
+thought that Beverley would never, never, be guilty of rudeness to a
+woman.
+
+"Some time you shall not say that," Farnsworth responded. "I asked you
+to stop a moment that I might beg you to believe how wretchedly sorry I
+am for what I am doing. But you cannot understand me now. Are you
+really hurt, Miss Roussillon? I assure you that it was purely
+accidental."
+
+"My hurt is nothing," she said.
+
+"I am very glad."
+
+"Well, then, shall we go on to the fort?"
+
+"You may go where you please, Mademoiselle."
+
+She turned her back upon him and without an answering word walked
+straight to the lantern that hung by the gate of the stockade, where a
+sentinel tramped to and fro. A few moments later Captain Farnsworth
+presented her to Hamilton, who had been called from his bed when the
+news of the trouble at Roussillon place reached the fort.
+
+"So you've been raising hell again, have you, Miss?" he growled, with
+an ugly frown darkening his face.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Farnsworth, "Miss Roussillon was not to blame
+for--"
+
+"In your eyes she'd not be to blame, sir, if she burned up the fort and
+all of us in it," Hamilton gruffly interrupted. "Miss, what have you
+been doing? What are you here for? Captain Farnsworth, you will please
+state the particulars of the trouble that I have just heard about. And
+I may as well notify you that I wish to hear no special lover's
+pleading in this girl's behalf."
+
+Farnsworth's face whitened with anger; he bit his lip and a shiver ran
+through his frame; but he had to conquer the passion. In a few words,
+blunt and direct as musket-balls, he told all the circumstances of what
+had taken place, making no concealments to favor Alice, but boldly
+blaming the officer of the patrol, Lieutenant Barlow, for losing his
+head and attacking a young girl in her own home.
+
+"I will hear from Barlow," said Hamilton, after listening attentively
+to the story. "But take this girl and confine her. Show her no favors.
+I hold you responsible for her until to-morrow morning. You can retire."
+
+There was no room for discussion. Farnsworth saluted and turned to
+Alice.
+
+"Come with me," he gently said.
+
+Hamilton looked after them as they went out of his room, a curious
+smile playing around his firmly set lips.
+
+"She's the most beautiful vixen that I ever saw," he thought. "She
+doesn't look to be a French girl, either--decidedly English." He
+shrugged his shoulders, then laughed dryly. "Farnsworth's as crazy as
+can be, the beggar; in love with her so deep that he can't see out. By
+Jove, she IS a beauty! Never saw such eyes. And plucky to beat the
+devil. I'll bet my head Barlow'll be daft about her next!"
+
+Still, notwithstanding the lightness of his inward comments, Hamilton
+regarded the incident as rather serious. He knew that the French
+inhabitants were secretly his bitter enemies, yet probably willing, if
+he would humor their peculiar social, domestic and commercial
+prejudices, to refrain from active hostilities, and even to aid him in
+furnishing his garrison with a large amount of needed supplies. The
+danger just now was twofold; his Indian allies were deserting him, and
+a flotilla loaded with provisions and ammunition from Detroit had
+failed to arrive. He might, if the French rose against him and were
+joined by the Indians, have great difficulty defending the fort. It was
+clear that M. Roussillon had more influence with both creoles and
+savages than any other person save Father Beret. Urgent policy dictated
+that these two men should somehow be won over. But to do this it would
+be necessary to treat Alice in such a way that her arrest would aid,
+instead of operating against the desired result,--a thing not easy to
+manage.
+
+Hamilton was not a man of fine scruples, but he may have been, probably
+was, better than our American historians have made him appear. His
+besetting weakness, which, as a matter of course, he regarded as the
+highest flower of efficiency, was an uncontrollable temper, a lack of
+fine human sympathy and an inability to forgive. In his calmest
+moments, when prudence appealed to him, he would resolve to use
+diplomatic means; but no sooner was his opinion questioned or his
+purpose opposed than anger and the thirst for revenge overpowered every
+gentler consideration. He returned to his bed that night fully resolved
+upon a pleasant and successful interview with Alice next morning.
+
+Captain Farnsworth took his fair prisoner straight-way from Hamilton's
+presence to a small room connected with a considerable structure in a
+distant angle of the stockade. Neither he nor Alice spoke on the way.
+With a huge wooden key he unlocked the door and stepped aside for her
+to enter. A dim lamp was burning within, its yellowish light flickering
+over the scant furniture, which consisted of a comfortable bed, a table
+with some books on it, three chairs, a small looking-glass on the wall,
+a guitar and some articles of men's clothing hanging here and there. A
+heap of dull embers smouldered in the fireplace. Alice did not falter
+at the threshold, but promptly entered her prison.
+
+"I hope you can be comfortable," said Farnsworth in a low tone. "It's
+the best I can give you."
+
+"Thank you," was the answer spoken quite as if he had handed her a
+glass of water or picked up her handkerchief.
+
+He held the door a moment, while she stopped, with her back toward him,
+in the middle of the room; then she heard him close and lock it. The
+air was almost too warm after her exposure to the biting wind and cold
+dashes of rain. She cast off her outer wraps and stood by the
+fireplace. At a glance she comprehended that the place was not the one
+she had formerly occupied as a prisoner, and that it belonged to a man.
+A long rifle stood in a corner, a bullet-pouch and powder-horn hanging
+on a projecting hickory ramrod; a heavy fur top-coat lay across one of
+the chairs.
+
+Alice felt her situation bitterly enough; but she was not of the stuff
+that turns to water at the touch of misfortune. Pioneer women took
+hardships as a matter of course, and met calamity with admirable
+fortitude. There was no wringing of hands, no frantic wailing, no
+hollow, despairing groan. While life lasted hope flourished, even in
+most tragic surroundings; and not unfrequently succor came, at the last
+verge of destruction, as the fitting reward of unconquerable courage. A
+girl like Alice must be accepted in the spirit of her time and
+surroundings. She was born amid experiences scarcely credible now, and
+bred in an area and an atmosphere of incomparable dangers. Naturally
+she accepted conditions of terrible import with a sang froid scarcely
+possible to a girl of our day. She did not cry, she did not sink down
+helpless when she found herself once more imprisoned with some
+uncertain trial before her; but simply knelt and repeated the Lord's
+prayer, then went to bed and slept; even dreamed the dream of a maid's
+first love.
+
+Meantime Farnsworth, who had given Alice his own apartment, took what
+rest he could on the cold ground under a leaky shed hard by. His wound,
+not yet altogether healed, was not benefited by the exposure.
+
+In due time next morning Hamilton ordered Alice brought to his office,
+and when she appeared he was smiling with as near an approach to
+affability as his disposition would permit. He rose and bowed like a
+courtier.
+
+"I hope you rested well, Mademoiselle," he said in his best French. He
+imagined that the use of her language would be agreeable to begin with.
+
+The moment that Alice saw him wearing that shallow veneering of
+pleasantness on his never prepossessing visage, she felt a mood of
+perversity come over her. She, too, smiled, and he mistook her
+expression for one of reciprocal amenity. She noticed that her sword
+was on his table.
+
+"I am sorry, Monsieur, that I cannot say as much to you," she glibly
+responded. "If you lay upon a bed of needles the whole night through,
+your rest was better than you deserved. My own sleep was quite
+refreshing, thank you."
+
+Instantly Hamilton's choler rose. He tried to suppress it at first; but
+when he saw Alice actually laughing, and Farnsworth (who had brought
+her in) biting his lip furiously to keep from adding an uproarious
+guffaw, he lost all hold of himself. He unconsciously picked up the
+rapier and shook it till its blade swished.
+
+"I might have known better than to expect decency from a wench of your
+character," he said. "I hoped to do you a favor; but I see that you are
+not capable of accepting kindness politely."
+
+"I am sure, Monsieur, that I have but spoken the truth plainly to you.
+You would not have me do otherwise, I hope."
+
+Her voice, absolutely witching in its softness, freshness and suavity,
+helped the assault of her eyes, while her dimples twinkled and her hair
+shone. Hamilton felt his heart move strangely; but he could not forbear
+saying in English:
+
+"If you are so devilish truthful, Miss, you will probably tell me where
+the flag is that you stole and hid."
+
+It was always the missing banner that came to mind when he saw her.
+
+"Indeed I will do nothing of the sort," she promptly replied. "When you
+see that flag again you will be a prisoner and I will wave it high over
+your head."
+
+She lifted a hand as she spoke and made the motion of shaking a banner
+above him. It was exasperation sweetened almost to delight that took
+hold of the sturdy Briton. He liked pluck, especially in a woman; all
+the more if she was beautiful. Yet the very fact that he felt her charm
+falling upon him set him hard against her, not as Hamilton the man, but
+as Hamilton the commander at Vincennes.
+
+"You think to fling yourself upon me as you have upon Captain
+Farnsworth," he said, with an insulting leer and in a tone of prurient
+innuendo. "I am not susceptible, my dear." This more for Farnsworth's
+benefit than to insult her, albeit he was not in a mood to care.
+
+"You are a coward and a liar!" she exclaimed, her face flushing with
+hot shame. "You stand here," she quickly added, turning fiercely upon
+Farnsworth, "and quietly listen to such words! You, too, are a coward
+if you do not make him retract! Oh, you English are low brutes!"
+
+Hamilton laughed; but Farnsworth looked dark and troubled, his glance
+going back and forth from Alice to his commander, as if another word
+would cause him to do something terrible.
+
+"I rather think I've heard all that I care to hear from you, Miss,"
+Hamilton presently said. "Captain Farnsworth, you will see that the
+prisoner is confined in the proper place, which, I suggest to you, is
+not your sleeping quarters, sir."
+
+"Colonel Hamilton," said Farnsworth in a husky voice, "I slept on the
+ground under a shed last night in order that Miss Roussillon might be
+somewhat comfortable."
+
+"Humph! Well, see that you do not do it again. This girl is guilty of
+harboring a spy and resisting a lawful attempt of my guards to capture
+him. Confine her in the place prepared for prisoners and see that she
+stays there until I am ready to fix her punishment."
+
+"There is no place fit for a young girl to stay in," Farnsworth
+ventured. "She can have no comfort or--"
+
+"Take her along, sir; any place is good enough for her so long as she
+behaves like a--"
+
+"Very well," Farnsworth bluntly interrupted, thus saving Alice the
+stroke of a vile comparison. "Come with me, please, Miss Roussillon."
+
+He pulled her toward the door, then dropped the arm he had grasped and
+murmured an apology.
+
+She followed him out, holding her head high. No one looking on would
+have suspected that a sinking sensation in her heart made it difficult
+for her to walk, or that her eyes, shining like stars, were so inwardly
+clouded with distress that she saw her way but dimly.
+
+It was a relief to Hamilton when Helm a few minutes later entered the
+room with something breezy to say.
+
+"What's up now, if I may ask?" the jolly American demanded. "What's
+this I hear about trouble with the French women? Have they begun a
+revolution?"
+
+"That elephant, Gaspard Roussillon, came back into town last night,"
+said Hamilton sulkily.
+
+"Well, he went out again, didn't he?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Stepped on somebody's toe first, eh?"
+
+"The guard tried to capture him, and that girl of his wounded
+Lieutenant Barlow in the neck with a sword. Roussillon fought like a
+tiger and the men swear that the devil himself appeared on the scene to
+help the Frenchman out."
+
+"Moral: Be generous in your dealings with Frenchmen and Frenchwomen and
+so get the devil on your side."
+
+"I've got the girl a prisoner, and I swear to you that I'll have her
+shot this time if--"
+
+"Why not shoot her yourself? You oughtn't to shirk a dirty job like
+that and force it upon your men."
+
+Hamilton laughed and elevated his shoulders as if to shake off an
+annoying load. Just then a young officer with a white bandage around
+his neck entered and saluted. He was a small, soft-haired, blue-eyed
+man of reckless bearing, with marks of dissipation sharply cut into his
+face. He saluted, smiling self-consciously.
+
+"Well, Barlow," said Hamilton, "the kitten scratched you, did she?"
+
+"Yes, slightly, and I don't think I've been treated fairly in the
+matter, sir."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I stood the brunt and now Captain Farnsworth gets the prize." He
+twisted his mouth in mock expression of maudlin disappointment. "I'm
+always cheated out of the sweets. I never get anything for gallant
+conduct on the field."
+
+"Poor boy! It is a shame. But I say, Lieutenant, has Roussillon really
+escaped, or is he hidden somewhere in town? Have you been careful?"
+
+"Oh, it's the Indians. They all swear by these Frenchmen. You can't get
+any help from them against a fellow like Roussillon. In fact they aid
+him; he's among them now."
+
+"Moral again," Helm interposed; "keep on the good side of the French!"
+
+"That's sensible talk, sir," assented Barlow.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Hamilton. "You might as well talk of keeping on the
+good side of the American traitors--a bloody murrain seize the whole
+race!"
+
+"That's what I say," chimed in the Lieutenant, with a sly look at Helm.
+
+"They have been telling me a cock-and-bull story concerning the affair
+at the Roussillon cabin," Hamilton said, changing his manner. "What is
+this about a disguised and wonderful man who rushed in and upset the
+whole of you. I want no romancing; give me the facts."
+
+Barlow's dissolute countenance became troubled.
+
+"The facts," he said, speaking with serious deliberation, "are not
+clear. It was like a clap of thunder, the way that man performed. As
+you say, he did fling the whole squad all of a heap, and it was done
+that quickly," he snapped his thumb and finger demonstratively with a
+sharp report; "nobody could understand it."
+
+Hamilton looked at his subaltern with a smile of unlimited contempt and
+said:
+
+"A pretty officer of His Majesty's army, you are, Lieutenant Barlow!
+First a slip of a girl shows herself your superior with the sword and
+wounds you, then a single man wipes up the floor of a house with you
+and your guard, depriving you at the same time of both vision and
+memory, so that you cannot even describe your assailant!"
+
+"He was dressed like a priest," muttered Barlow, evidently frightened
+at his commander's scathing comment. "That was all there was to see."
+
+"A priest! Some of the men say the devil. I wonder--" Hamilton
+hesitated and looked at the floor.
+
+"This Father Beret, he is too old for such a thing, isn't he?"
+
+"I have thought of him--it was like him--but he is, as you say, very
+old to be so tremendously strong and active. Why, I tell you that men
+went from his hands against the walls and floor as if shot out of a
+mortar. It was the strangest and most astounding thing I ever heard of."
+
+A little later Barlow seized a favorable opportunity and withdrew. The
+conversation was not to his liking.
+
+Hamilton sent for Father Beret and had a long talk with him, but the
+old man looked so childishly inoffensive in spirit and so collapsed
+physically that it seemed worse than foolishness to accuse him of the
+exploit over which the entire garrison was wondering. Farnsworth sat by
+during the interview. He looked the good priest curiously and
+critically over from head to foot, remembering, but not mentioning, the
+most unclerical punch in the side received from that energetic right
+arm now lying so flabbily across the old man's lap.
+
+When the talk ended and Father Beret humbly took his leave, Hamilton
+turned to Farnsworth and said:
+
+"What do you think of this affair? I have cross-questioned all the men
+who took part in it, and every one of them says simply priest or devil.
+I think old Beret is both; but plainly he couldn't hurt a chicken, you
+can see that at a glance."
+
+Farnsworth smiled, rubbing his side reminiscently; but he shook his
+head.
+
+"I'm sure it's puzzling, indeed."
+
+Hamilton sat in thoughtful silence for a while, then abruptly changed
+the subject.
+
+"I think, Captain, that you had better send out Lieutenant Barlow and
+some of the best woodsmen to kill some game. We need fresh venison,
+and, by George! I'm not going to depend upon these French traitors any
+longer. I have set my foot down; they've got to do better or take the
+consequences." He paused for a breath, then added: "That girl has done
+too much to escape severest punishment. The garrison will be
+demoralized if this thing goes on without an example of authority
+rigidly enforced. I am resolved that there shall be a startling and
+effective public display of my power to punish. She shot you; you seem
+to be glad of it, but it was a grave offence. She has stabbed Barlow;
+that is another serious crime; but worst of all she aided a spy and
+resisted arrest. She must be punished."
+
+Farnsworth knew Hamilton's nature, and he now saw that Alice was in
+dreadful danger of death or something even worse. Whenever his chief
+talked of discipline and the need of maintaining his authority, there
+was little hope of softening his decisions. Moreover, the provocation
+to apply extreme measures really seemed sufficient, regarded from a
+military point of view, and Captain Farnsworth was himself, under
+ordinary circumstances, a disciplinarian of the strictest class. The
+fascination, however, by which Alice held him overbore every other
+influence, and his devotion to her loosened every other tie and
+obligation to a most dangerous extent. No sooner had he left
+headquarters and given Barlow his instructions touching the hunting
+expedition, than his mind began to wander amid visions and schemes by
+no means consistent with his military obligations. In order to reflect
+undisturbed he went forth into the dreary, lane-like streets of
+Vincennes and walked aimlessly here and there until he met Father Beret.
+
+Farnsworth saluted the old man, and was passing him by, when seeing a
+sword in his hand, half hidden in the folds of his worn and faded
+cassock, he turned and addressed him.
+
+"Why are you armed this morning, Father?" he demanded very pleasantly.
+"Who is to suffer now?"
+
+"I am not on the war-path, my son," replied the priest. "It is but a
+rapier that I am going to clean of rust spots that are gathering on its
+blade."
+
+"Is it yours, Father? Let me see it." He held out his hand.
+
+"No, not mine."
+
+Father Beret seemed not to notice Farnsworth's desire to handle the
+weapon, and the young man, instead of repeating his words, reached
+farther, nearly grasping the scabbard.
+
+"I cannot let you take it, my son," said Father Beret "You have its
+mate, that should satisfy you."
+
+"No, Colonel Hamilton took it," Farnsworth quickly replied. "If I could
+I would gladly return it to its owner. I am not a thief, Father, and I
+am ashamed of--of--what I did when I was drunk."
+
+The priest looked sharply into Farnsworth's eyes and read there
+something that reassured him. His long experience had rendered him
+adept at taking a man's value at a glance. He slightly lifted his face
+and said: "Ah, but the poor little girl! why do you persecute her? She
+really does not deserve it. She is a noble child. Give her back to her
+home and her people. Do not soil and spoil her sweet life."
+
+It was the sing-song voice used by Father Beret in his sermons and
+prayers; but something went with it indescribably touching. Farnsworth
+felt a lump rise in his throat and his eyes were ready to show tears.
+"Father," he said, with difficulty making his words distinct, "I would
+not harm Miss Roussillon to save my own life, and I would do
+anything--" he paused slightly, then added with passionate force; "I
+would do anything, no matter what, to save her from the terrible thing
+that now threatens her."
+
+Father Beret's countenance changed curiously as he gazed at the young
+man and said:
+
+"If you really mean what you say, you can easily save her, my son."
+
+"Father, by all that is holy, I mean just what I say."
+
+"Swear not at all, my son, but give me your hand."
+
+The two men stood with a tight grip between them and exchanged a long,
+steady, searching gaze.
+
+A drizzling rain had begun to fall again, with a raw wind creeping from
+the west.
+
+"Come with me to my house, my son," Father Beret presently added; and
+together they went, the priest covering Alice's sword from the rain
+with the folds of his cassock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+VIRTUE IN A LOCKET
+
+
+Long-Hair stood not upon ceremony in conveying to Beverley the
+information that he was to run the gauntlet, which, otherwise stated,
+meant that the Indians would form themselves in two parallel lines
+facing each other about six feet apart, and that the prisoner would be
+expected to run down the length of the space between, thus affording
+the warriors an opportunity, greatly coveted and relished by their
+fiendish natures, to beat him cruelly during his flight. This sort of
+thing was to the Indians, indeed, an exquisite amusement, as
+fascinating to them as the theater is to more enlightened people. No
+sooner was it agreed upon that the entertainment should again be
+undertaken than all the younger men began to scurry around getting
+everything ready for it. Their faces glowed with a droll cruelty
+strange to see, and they further expressed their lively expectations by
+playful yet curiously solemn antics.
+
+The preparations were simple and quickly made. Each man armed himself
+with a stick three feet long and about three-quarters of an inch in
+diameter. Rough weapons they were, cut from boughs of scrub-oak, knotty
+and tough as horn. Long-Hair unbound Beverley and stripped his clothes
+from his body down to the waist. Then the lines formed, the Indians in
+each row standing about as far apart as the width of the space in which
+the prisoner was to run. This arrangement gave them free use of their
+sticks and plenty of room for full swing of their lithe bodies.
+
+In removing Beverley's clothes Long-Hair found Alice's locket hanging
+over the young man's heart. He tore it rudely off and grunted, glaring
+viciously, first at it, then at Beverley. He seemed to be mightily
+wrought upon.
+
+"White man damn thief," he growled deep in his throat; "stole from
+little girl!"
+
+He put the locket in his pouch and resumed his stupidly indifferent
+expression.
+
+When everything was ready for the delightful entertainment to begin,
+Long-Hair waved his tomahawk three times over Beverley's head, and
+pointing down between the waiting lines said:
+
+"Ugh, run!"
+
+But Beverley did not budge. He was standing erect, with his arms,
+deeply creased where the thongs had sunk, folded across his breast. A
+rush of thoughts and feelings had taken tumultuous possession of him
+and he could not move or decide what to do. A mad desire to escape
+arose in his heart the moment that he saw Long-Hair take the locket. It
+was as if Alice had cried to him and bidden him make a dash for liberty.
+
+"Ugh, run!"
+
+The order was accompanied with a push of such violence from Long-Hair's
+left elbow that Beverley plunged and fell, for his limbs, after their
+long and painful confinement in the raw-hide bonds, were stiff and
+almost useless. Long-Hair in no gentle voice bade him get up. The shock
+of falling seemed to awaken his dormant forces; a sudden resolve leaped
+into his brain. He saw that the Indians had put aside their bows and
+guns, most of which were leaning against the boles of trees here and
+yonder. What if he could knock Long-Hair down and run away? This might
+possibly be easy, considering the Indian's broken arm. His heart jumped
+at the possibility. But the shrewd savage was alert and saw the thought
+come into his face.
+
+"You try git 'way, kill dead!" he snarled, lifting his tomahawk ready
+for a stroke. "Brains out, damn!"
+
+Beverley glanced down the waiting and eager lines. Swiftly he
+speculated, wondering what would be his chance for escape were he to
+break through. But he did not take his own condition into account.
+
+"Ugh, run!"
+
+Again the elbow of Long-Hair's hurt arm pushed him toward the expectant
+rows of Indians, who flourished their clubs and uttered impatient
+grunts.
+
+This time he did not fall; but in trying to run he limped stiffly at
+first, his legs but slowly and imperfectly regaining their strength and
+suppleness from the action. Just before reaching the lines, however, he
+stopped short. Long-Hair, who was close behind him, took hold of his
+shoulder and led him back to the starting place. The big Indian's arm
+must have given him pain when he thus used it, but he did not wince.
+"Fool--kill dead!" he repeated two or three times, holding his tomahawk
+on high with threatening motions and frequent repetitions of his one
+echo from the profanity of civilization. He was beginning to draw his
+mouth down at the corners, and his eyes were narrowed to mere slits.
+
+Beverley understood now that he could not longer put off the trial. He
+must choose between certain death and the torture of the gauntlet, as
+frontiersmen named this savage ordeal. An old man might have preferred
+the stroke of the hatchet to such an infliction as the clubs must
+afford, considering that, even after all the agony, his captivity and
+suffering would be only a little nearer its end. Youth, however, has
+faith in the turn of fortune's wheel, and faith in itself, no matter
+how dark the prospect. Hope blows her horn just over the horizon, and
+the strain bids the young heart take courage and beat strong. Moreover,
+men were men, who led the van in those days on the outmost lines of our
+march to the summit of the world. Beverley was not more a hero than any
+other young, brave, unconquerable patriot of the frontier army. His
+situation simply tried him a trifle harder than was common. But it must
+be remembered that he had Love with him, and where Love is there can be
+no cowardice, no surrender.
+
+Long-Hair once again pushed him and said
+
+"Ugh, run!"
+
+Beverley made a direct dash for the narrow lane between the braced and
+watchful lines. Every warrior lifted his club; every copper face
+gleamed stolidly, a mask behind which burned a strangely atrocious
+spirit. The two savages standing at the end nearest Beverley struck at
+him the instant he reached than, but they taken quite by surprise when
+he checked himself between them and, leaping this way and that, swung
+out two powerful blows, left and right, stretching one of them flat and
+sending the other reeling and staggering half a dozen paces backward
+with the blood streaming from his nose.
+
+This done, Beverley turned to run away, but his breath was already
+short and his strength rapidly going.
+
+Long-Hair, who was at his heels, leaped before him when he had gone but
+a few steps and once more flourished the tomahawk. To struggle was
+useless, save to insist upon being brained outright, which just then
+had no part in Beverley's considerations. Long-Hair kicked his victim
+heavily, uttering laconic curses meanwhile, and led him back again to
+the starting-point.
+
+A genuine sense of humor seems almost entirely lacking in the mind of
+the American Indian. He smiles at things not in the least amusing to us
+and when he laughs, which is very seldom, the cause of his merriment
+usually lies in something repellantly cruel and inhuman. When Beverley
+struck his two assailants, hurting them so that one lay half stunned,
+while the other spun away from his fist with a smashed nose, all the
+rest of the Indians grunted and laughed raucously in high delight. They
+shook their clubs, danced, pointed at their discomfited fellows and
+twisted their painted faces into knotted wrinkles, their eyes twinkling
+with devilish expression of glee quite indescribable.
+
+"Ugh, damn, run!" said Long-Half, this time adding a hard kick to the
+elbow-shove he gave Beverley.
+
+The young man, who had borne all he could, now turned upon him
+furiously and struck straight from the shoulder, setting the whole
+weight of his body into the blow. Long-Hair stepped out of the way and
+quick as a flash brought the flat side of his tomahawk with great force
+against Beverley's head. This gave the amusement a sudden and
+disappointing end, for the prisoner fell limp and senseless to the
+ground. No more running the gauntlet for him that day. Indeed it
+required protracted application of the best Indian skill to revive him
+so that he could fairly be called a living man. There had been no
+dangerous concussion, however, and on the following morning camp was
+broken.
+
+Beverley, sore, haggard, forlornly disheveled, had his arms bound again
+and was made to march apace with his nimble enemies, who set out
+swiftly eastward, their disappointment at having their sport cut short,
+although bitter enough, not in the least indicated by any facial
+expression or spiteful act.
+
+Was it really a strange thing, or was it not, that Beverley's mind now
+busied itself unceasingly with the thought that Long-Hair had Alice's
+picture in his pouch? One might find room for discussion of a cerebral
+problem like this; but our history cannot be delayed with analyses and
+speculations; it must run its direct course unhindered to the end.
+Suffice it to record that, while tramping at Long-Hair's side and
+growing more and more desirous of seeing the picture again, Beverley
+began trying to converse with his taciturn captor. He had a
+considerable smattering of several Indian dialects, which he turned
+upon Long-Hair to the best of his ability, but apparently without
+effect. Nevertheless he babbled at intervals, always upon the same
+subject and always endeavoring to influence that huge, stolid,
+heartless savage in the direction of letting him see again the child
+face of the miniature.
+
+A stone, one of our travel-scarred and mysterious western granite
+bowlders brought from the far north by the ancient ice, would show as
+much sympathy as did the face of Long-Hair. Once in a while he gave
+Beverley a soulless glance and said "damn" with utter indifference.
+Nothing, however, could quench or even in the slightest sense allay the
+lover's desire. He talked of Alice and the locket with constantly
+increasing volubility, saying over and over phrases of endearment in a
+half-delirious way, not aware that fever was fermenting his blood and
+heating his brain. Probably he would have been very ill but for the
+tremendous physical exercise forced upon him. The exertion kept him in
+a profuse perspiration and his robust constitution cast off the
+malarial poison. Meantime he used every word and phrase, every grunt
+and gesture of Indian dialect that he could recall, in the iterated and
+reiterated attempt to make Long-Hair understand what he wanted.
+
+When night came on again the band camped under some trees beside a
+swollen stream. There was no rain falling, but almost the entire
+country lay under a flood of water. Fires of logs were soon burning
+brightly on the comparatively dry bluff chosen by the Indians. The
+weather was chill, but not cold. Long-Hair took great pains, however,
+to dry Beverley's clothes and see that he had warm wraps and plenty to
+eat. Hamilton's large reward would not be forthcoming should the
+prisoner die, Beverley was good property, well worth careful attention.
+To be sure his scalp, in the worst event, would command a sufficient
+honorarium, but not the greatest. Beverley thought of all this while
+the big Indian was wrapping him snugly in skins and blankets for the
+night, and there was no comfort in it, save that possibly if he were
+returned to Hamilton he might see Alice again before he died.
+
+A fitful wind cried dolefully in the leafless treetops, the stream hard
+by gave forth a rushing sound, and far away some wolves howled like
+lost souls. Worn out, sore from head to foot, Beverley, deep buried in
+the blankets and skins, soon fell into a profound sleep. The fires
+slowly crumbled and faded; no sentinel was posted, for the Indians did
+not fear an attack, there being no enemies that they knew of nearer
+than Kaskaskia. The camp slumbered as one man.
+
+At about the mid-hour of the night Long-Hair gently awoke his prisoner
+by drawing a hand across his face, then whispered in his ear:
+
+"Damn, still!"
+
+Beverley tried to rise, uttering a sleepy ejaculation under his breath.
+"No talk," hissed Long-Hair. "Still!"
+
+There was something in his voice that not only swept the last film of
+sleep out of Beverley's brain, but made it perfectly clear to him that
+a very important bit of craftiness was being performed; just what its
+nature was, however, he could not surmise. One thing was obvious,
+Long-Hair did not wish the other Indians to know of the move he was
+making. Deftly he slipped the blankets from around Beverley, and cut
+the thongs at his ankles.
+
+"Still!" he whispered. "Come 'long."
+
+Under such circumstances a competent mind acts with lightning celerity.
+Beverley now understood that Long-Hair was stealing him away from the
+other savages and that the big villain meant to cheat them out of their
+part of the reward. Along with this discovery came a fresh gleam of
+hope. It would be far easier to escape from one Indian than from nearly
+a score. Ah, he would follow Long-Hair, indeed he would! The needed
+courage came with the thought, and so with immense labor he crept at
+the heels of that crawling monster. It was a painful process, for his
+arms were still fast bound at the wrists with the raw-hide strings; but
+what was pain to him? He shivered with joy, thinking of what might
+happen. The voice of the wind overhead and the noisy bubbling of the
+stream near by were cheerful and cheering sounds to him now. So much
+can a mere shadow of hope do for a human soul on the verge of despair!
+Already he was planning or trying to plan some way by which he could
+kill Long-Hair when they should reach a safe distance from the sleeping
+camp.
+
+But how could the thing be done? A man with his hands tied, though they
+are in front of him, is in no excellent condition to cope with a free
+and stalwart savage armed to the teeth. Still Beverley's spirits rose
+with every rod of distance that was added to their slow progress.
+
+Their course was nearly parallel with that of the stream, but slightly
+converging toward it, and after they had gone about a furlong they
+reached the bank. Here Long-Hair stopped and, without a word, cut the
+thongs from Beverley's wrists. This was astounding; the young man could
+scarcely realize it, nor was he ready to act.
+
+"Swim water," Long-Hair said in a guttural murmur barely audible.
+"Swim, damn!"
+
+Again it was necessary for Beverley's mind to act swiftly and with
+prudence. The camp was yet within hailing distance. A false move now
+would bring the whole pack howling to the rescue. Something told him to
+do as Long-Hair ordered, so with scarcely a perceptible hesitation he
+scrambled down the bushy bank and slipped into the water, followed by
+Long-Hair, who seized him by one arm when he began to swim, and struck
+out with him into the boiling and tumbling current.
+
+Beverley had always thought himself a master swimmer, but Long-Hair
+showed him his mistake. The giant Indian, with but one hand free to
+use, fairly rushed through that deadly cold and turbulent water,
+bearing his prisoner with him despite the wounded arm, as easily as if
+towing him at the stern of a pirogue. True, his course was down stream
+for a considerable distance, but even when presently he struck out
+boldly for the other bank, breasting a current in which few swimmers
+could have lived, much less made headway, he still swung forward
+rapidly, splitting the waves and scarcely giving Beverley freedom
+enough so that he could help in the progress. It was a long, cold
+struggle, and when at last they touched the sloping low bank on the
+other side, Long-Hair had fairly to lift his chilled and exhausted
+prisoner to the top.
+
+"Ugh, cold," he grunted, beginning to pound and rub Beverley's arms,
+legs and body. "Make warm, damn heap!"
+
+All this he did with his right hand, holding the tomahawk in his left.
+
+It was a strange, bewildering experience out of which the young man
+could not see in any direction far enough to give him a hint upon which
+to act. In a few minutes Long-Hair jerked him to his feet and said:
+
+"Go."
+
+It was just light enough to see that the order had a tomahawk to
+enforce it withal. Long-Hair indicated the direction and drove Beverley
+onward as fast as he could.
+
+"Try run 'way, kill, damn!" he kept repeating, while with his left hand
+on the young man's shoulder he guided him from behind dexterously
+through the wood for some distance. Then he stopped and grunted, adding
+his favorite expletive, which he used with not the least knowledge of
+its meaning. To him the syllable "damn" was but a mouthful of forcible
+wind.
+
+They had just emerged from a thicket into an open space, where the
+ground was comparatively dry. Overhead the stars were shining in great
+clusters of silver and gold against a dark, cavernous looking sky, here
+and there overrun with careering black clouds. Beverley shivered, not
+so much with cold as on account of the stress of excitement which
+amounted to nervous rigor. Long-Hair faced him and leaned toward him,
+until his breathing was audible and his massive features were dimly
+outlined. A dragon of the darkest age could not have been more
+repulsive.
+
+"Ugh, friend, damn!"
+
+Beverley started when these words were followed by a sentence in an
+Indian dialect somewhat familiar to him, a dialect in which he had
+tried to talk with Long-Hair during the day's march. The sentence,
+literally translated, was:
+
+"Long-Hair is friendly now."
+
+A blow in the face could not have been so surprising. Beverley not only
+started, but recoiled as if from a sudden and deadly apparition. The
+step between supreme exhilaration and utter collapse is now and then
+infinitesimal. There are times, moreover, when an expression on the
+face of Hope makes her look like the twin sister of Despair. The moment
+falling just after Long-Hair spoke was a century condensed in a breath.
+
+"Long-Hair is friendly now; will white man be friendly?"
+
+Beverley heard, but the speech seemed to come out of vastness and
+hollow distance; he could not realize it fairly. He felt as if in a
+dream, far off somewhere in loneliness, with a big, shadowy form
+looming before him. He heard the chill wind in the thickets round
+about, and beyond Long-Hair rose a wall of giant trees.
+
+"Ugh, not understand?" the savage presently demanded in his broken
+English.
+
+"Yes, yes," said Beverley, "I understand."
+
+"Is the white man friendly now?" Long-Hair then repeated in his own
+tongue, with a certain insistence of manner and voice.
+
+"Yes, friendly."
+
+Beverley said this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness. His
+throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning to
+comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his own, was
+desirous of making a friendship between them. The thought was
+bewildering.
+
+Long-Hair fumbled in his pouch and took out Alice's locket, which he
+handed to Beverley. "White man love little girl?" he inquired in a tone
+that bordered upon tenderness, again speaking in Indian.
+
+Beverley clutched the disk as soon as he saw it gleam in the star-light.
+
+"White man going to have little girl for his squaw--eh?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried Beverley without hearing his own voice. He was trying
+to open the locket but his hands were numb and trembling. When at last
+he did open it he could not see the child face within, for now even the
+star-light was shut off by a scudding black cloud.
+
+"Little girl saved Long-Hair's life. Long-Hair save white warrior for
+little girl."
+
+A dignity which was almost noble accompanied these simple sentences.
+Long-Hair stood proudly erect, like a colossal dark statue in the
+dimness.
+
+The great truth dawned upon Beverley that here was a characteristic
+act. He knew that an Indian rarely failed to repay a kindness or an
+injury, stroke for stroke, when opportunity offered. Long-Hair was a
+typical Indian. That is to say, a type of inhumanity raised to the last
+power; but under his hideous atrocity of nature lay the indestructible
+sense of gratitude so fixed and perfect that it did its work almost
+automatically.
+
+It must be said, and it may or may not be to the white man's shame,
+that Beverley did not respond with absolute promptness and sincerity to
+Long-Hair's generosity. He had suffered terribly at the hands of this
+savage. His arms and legs were raw from the biting of the thongs; his
+body ached from the effect of blows and kicks laid upon him while bound
+and helpless. Perhaps he was not a very emotional man. At all events
+there was no sudden recognition of the favor he was receiving. And this
+pleased Long-Hair, for the taste of the American Indian delights in
+immobility of countenance and reserve of feeling under great strain.
+
+"Wait here a little while," Long-Hair presently said, and without
+lingering for reply, turned away and disappeared in the wood. Beverley
+was free to run if he wished to, and the thought did surge across his
+mind; but a restraining something, like a hand laid upon him, would not
+let his limbs move. Down deep in his heart a calm voice seemed to be
+repeating Long-Hair's Indian sentence--"Wait here a little while."
+
+A few minutes later Long-Hair returned bearing two guns, Beverley's and
+his own, the latter, a superb weapon given him by Hamilton. He
+afterward explained that he had brought these, with their
+bullet-pouches and powder-horns, to a place of concealment near by
+before he awoke Beverley. This meant that he had swum the cold river
+three times since night-fall; once over with the guns and
+accouterments; once back to camp, then over again with Beverley! All
+this with a broken arm, and to repay Alice for her kindness to him.
+
+Beverley may have been slow, but at last his appreciation was, perhaps,
+all the more profound. As best he could he expressed it to Long-Hair,
+who showed no interest whatever in the statement. Instead of responding
+in Indian, he said "damn" without emphasis. It was rather as if he had
+yawned absently, being bored.
+
+Delay could not be thought of. Long-Hair explained briefly that he
+thought. Beverley must go to Kaskaskia. He had come across the stream
+in the direction of Vincennes in order to set his warriors at fault.
+The stream must be recrossed, he said, farther down, and he would help
+Beverley a certain distance on his way, then leave him to shift for
+himself. He had a meager amount of parched corn and buffalo meat in his
+pouch, which would stay hunger until they could kill some game. Now
+they must go.
+
+The resilience of a youthful and powerful physique offers many a
+problem to the biologist. Vital force seems to find some mysterious
+reservoir of nourishment hidden away in the nerve-centers. Beverley set
+out upon that seemingly impossible undertaking with renewed energy. It
+could not have been the ounce of parched corn and bit of jerked venison
+from which he drew so much strength; but on the other hand, could it
+have been the miniature of Alice, which he felt pressing over his heart
+once more, that afforded a subtle stimulus to both mind and body? They
+flung miles behind them before day-dawn, Long-Hair leading, Beverley
+pressing close at his heels. Most of the way led over flat prairies
+covered with water, and they therefore left no track by which they
+could be followed.
+
+Late in the forenoon Long-Hair killed a deer at the edge of a wood.
+Here they made a fire and cooked a supply which would last them for a
+day or two, and then on they went again. But we cannot follow them step
+by step. When Long-Hair at last took leave of Beverley, the occasion
+had no ceremony. It was an abrupt, unemotional parting. The stalwart
+Indian simply said in his own dialect, pointing westward:
+
+"Go that way two days. You will find your friends."
+
+Then, without another look or word, he turned about and stalked
+eastward at a marvelously rapid gait. In his mind he had a good tale to
+tell his warrior companions when he should find them again: how
+Beverley escaped that night and how he followed him a long, long chase,
+only to lose him at last under the very guns of the fort at Kaskaskia.
+But before he reached his band an incident of some importance changed
+his story to a considerable degree. It chanced that he came upon
+Lieutenant Barlow, who, in pursuit of game, had lost his bearings and,
+far from his companions, was beating around quite bewildered in a
+watery solitude. Long-Hair promptly murdered the poor fellow and
+scalped him with as little compunction as he would have skinned a
+rabbit; for he had a clever scheme in his head, a very audacious and
+outrageous scheme, by which he purposed to recoup, to some extent, the
+damages sustained by letting Beverley go.
+
+Therefore, when he rejoined his somewhat disheartened and demoralized
+band he showed them the scalp and gave them an eloquent account of how
+he tore it from Beverley's head after a long chase and a bloody hand to
+hand fight. They listened, believed, and were satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FATHER BERET'S OLD BATTLE
+
+
+The room in which Alice was now imprisoned formed part of the upper
+story of a building erected by Hamilton in one of the four angles of
+the stockade. It had no windows and but two oblong port-holes made to
+accommodate a small swivel, which stood darkly scowling near the middle
+of the floor. From one of these apertures Alice could see the
+straggling roofs and fences of the dreary little town, while from the
+other a long reach of watery prairie, almost a lake, lay under view
+with the rolling, muddy Wabash gleaming beyond. There seemed to be no
+activity of garrison or townspeople. Few sounds broke the silence of
+which the cheerless prison room seemed to be the center.
+
+Alice felt all her courage and cheerfulness leaving her. She was alone
+in the midst of enemies. No father or mother, no friend--a young girl
+at the mercy of soldiers, who could not be expected to regard her with
+any sympathy beyond that which is accompanied with repulsive leers and
+hints. Day after day her loneliness and helplessness became more
+agonizing. Farnsworth, it is true, did all he could to relieve the
+strain of her situation; but Hamilton had an eye upon what passed and
+soon interfered. He administered a bitter reprimand, under which his
+subordinate writhed in speechless anger and resentment.
+
+"Finally, Captain Farnsworth," he said in conclusion, "you will
+distinctly understand that this girl is my prisoner, not yours; that I,
+not you, will direct how she is to be held and treated, and that
+hereafter I will suffer no interference on your part. I hope you fully
+understand me, sir, and will govern yourself accordingly."
+
+Smarting, or rather smothering, under the outrageous insult of these
+remarks, Farnsworth at first determined to fling his resignation at the
+Governor's feet and then do whatever desperate thing seemed most to his
+mood. But a soldier's training is apt to call a halt before the worst
+befalls in such a case. Moreover, in the present temptation, Farnsworth
+had a special check and hindrance. He had had a conference with Father
+Beret, in which the good priest had played the part of wisdom in
+slippers, and of gentleness more dove-like than the dove's. A very
+subtle impression, illuminated with the "hope that withers hope," had
+come of that interview; and now Farnsworth felt its restraint. He
+therefore saluted Hamilton formally and walked away.
+
+Father Beret's paternal love for Alice,--we cannot characterize it more
+nicely than to call it paternal,--was his justification for a certain
+mild sort of corruption insinuated by him into the heart of Farnsworth.
+He was a crafty priest, but his craft was always used for a good end.
+Unquestionably Jesuitic was his mode of circumventing the young man's
+military scruples by offering him a puff of fair weather with which to
+sail toward what appeared to be the shore of delight. He saw at a
+glance that Farnsworth's love for Alice was a consuming passion in a
+very ardent yet decidedly weak heart. Here was the worldly lever with
+which Father Beret hoped to raze Alice's prison and free her from the
+terrible doom with which she was threatened.
+
+The first interview was at Father Beret's cabin, to which, as will be
+remembered, the priest and Farnsworth went after their meeting in the
+street. It actually came to nothing, save an indirect understanding but
+half suggested by Father Beret and never openly sanctioned by Captain
+Farnsworth. The talk was insinuating on the part of the former, while
+the latter slipped evasively from every proposition, as if not able to
+consider it on account of a curious obtuseness of perception. Still,
+when they separated they shook hands and exchanged a searching look
+perfectly satisfactory to both.
+
+The memory of that interview with the priest was in Farnsworth's mind
+when, boiling with rage, he left Hamilton's presence and went forth
+into the chill February air. He passed out through the postern and
+along the sodden and queachy aedge of the prairie, involuntarily making
+his way to Father Beret's cabin. His indignation was so great that he
+trembled from head to foot at every step. The door of the place was
+open and Father Beret was eating a frugal meal of scones and sour wine
+(of his own make, he said), which he hospitably begged to share with
+his visitor. A fire smouldered on the hearth, and a flat stone showed,
+by the grease smoking over its hot surface, where the cakes had been
+baked.
+
+"Come in, my son," said the priest, "and try the fare of a poor old
+man. It is plain, very plain, but good." He smacked his lips sincerely
+and fingered another scone. "Take some, take some."
+
+Farnsworth was not tempted. The acid bouquet of the wine filled the
+room with a smack of vinegar, and the smoke from rank scorching fat and
+wheat meal did not suggest an agreeable feast.
+
+"Well, well, if you are not hungry, my son, sit down on the stool there
+and tell me the news."
+
+Farnsworth took the low seat without a word, letting his eyes wander
+over the walls. Alice's rapier, the mate to that now worn by Hamilton,
+hung in its curiously engraved scabbard near one corner. The sight of
+it inflamed Farnsworth.
+
+"It's an outrage," he broke forth. "Governor Hamilton sent a man to
+Roussillon place with orders to bring him the scabbard of Miss
+Roussillon's sword, and he now wears the beautiful weapon as if he had
+come by it honestly. Damn him!"
+
+"My dear, dear son, you must not soil your lips with such language!"
+Father Beret let fall the half of a well bitten cake and held up both
+hands.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Father; I know I ought to be more careful in your
+presence; but--but--the beastly, hellish scoundrel--"
+
+"Bah! doucement, mon fils, doucement." The old man shook his head and
+his finger while speaking. "Easy, my son, easy. You would be a fine
+target for bullets were your words to reach Hamilton's ears. You are
+not permitted to revile your commander."
+
+"Yes, I know; but how can a man restrain himself under such abominable
+conditions?"
+
+Father Beret shrewdly guessed that Hamilton had been giving the Captain
+fresh reason for bitter resentment. Moreover, he was sure that the
+moving cause had been Alice. So, in order to draw out what he wished to
+hear, he said very gently:
+
+"How is the little prisoner getting along?"
+
+Farnsworth ground his teeth and swore; but Father Beret appeared not to
+hear; he bit deep into a scone, took a liberal sip of the muddy red
+wine and added:
+
+"Has she a comfortable place? Do you think Governor Hamilton would let
+me visit her?"
+
+"It is horrible!" Farnsworth blurted. "She's penned up as if she were a
+dangerous beast, the poor girl. And that damned scoundrel--"
+
+"Son, son!"
+
+"Oh, it's no use to try, I can't help it, Father. The whelp--"
+
+"We can converse more safely and intelligently if we avoid profanity,
+and undue emotion, my son. Now, if you will quit swearing, I will, and
+if you will be calm, so will I."
+
+Farnsworth felt the sly irony of this absurdly vicarious proposition.
+Father Beret smiled with a kindly twinkle in his deep-set eyes.
+
+"Well, if you don't use profane language, Father, there's no telling
+how much you think in expletives. What is your opinion of a man who
+tumbles a poor, defenseless girl into prison and then refuses to let
+her be decently cared for? How do you express yourself about him?"
+
+"My son, men often do things of which they ought to be ashamed. I heard
+of a young officer once who maltreated a little girl that he met at
+night in the street. What evil he would have done, had not a passing
+kind-hearted man reminded him of his honor by a friendly punch in the
+ribs, I dare not surmise."
+
+"True, and your sarcasm goes home as hard as your fist did, Father. I
+know that I've been a sad dog all my life. Miss Roussillon saved you by
+shooting me, and I love her for it. Lay on, Father, I deserve more than
+you can give me."
+
+"Surely you do, my son, surely you do; but my love for you will not let
+me give you pain. Ah, we priests have to carry all men's loads. Our
+backs are broad, however, very broad, my son."
+
+"And your fists devilish heavy, Father, devilish heavy."
+
+The gentle smile again flickered over the priest's weather-beaten face
+as he glanced sidewise at Farnsworth and said:
+
+"Sometimes, sometimes, my son, a carnal weapon must break the way for a
+spiritual one. But we priests rarely have much physical strength; our
+dependence is upon--"
+
+"To be sure; certainly," Farnsworth interrupted, rubbing his side,
+"your dependence is upon the first thing that offers. I've had many a
+blow; but yours was the solidest that ever jarred thy mortal frame,
+Father Beret."
+
+The twain began to laugh. There is nothing like a reminiscence to stir
+up fresh mutual sympathy.
+
+"If your intercostals were somewhat sore for a time, on account of a
+contact with priestly knuckles, doubtless there soon set in a
+corresponding uneasiness in the region of your conscience. Such shocks
+are often vigorously alterative and tonic--eh, my son?"
+
+"You jolted me sober, Father, and then I was ashamed of myself. But
+where does all your tremendous strength lie? You don't look strong."
+
+While speaking Farnsworth leaned near Father Beret and grasped his arm.
+The young man started, for his fingers, instead of closing around a
+flabby, shrunken old man's limb, spread themselves upon a huge, knotted
+mass of iron muscles. With a quick movement Father Beret shook off
+Farnsworth's hand, and said:
+
+"I am no Samson, my son. Non sum qualis eram." Then, as if dismissing a
+light subject for a graver one, he sighed and added; "I suppose there
+is nothing that can be done for little Alice."
+
+He called the tall, strong girl "little Alice," and so she seemed to
+him. He could not, without direct effort, think of her as a
+magnificently maturing woman. She had always been his spoiled pet
+child, perversely set against the Holy Church, but dear to him
+nevertheless.
+
+"I came to you to ask that very question, Father," said Farnsworth.
+
+"And what do I know? Surely, my son, you see how utterly helpless an
+old priest is against all you British. And besides--"
+
+"Father Beret," Farnsworth huskily interrupted, "is there a place that
+you know of anywhere in which Miss Roussillon could be hidden, if--"
+
+"My dear son."
+
+"But, Father, I mean it."
+
+"Mean what? Pardon an old man's slow understanding. What are you
+talking about, my son?"
+
+Father Beret glanced furtively about, then quickly stepped through the
+doorway, walked entirely around the house and came in again before
+Farnsworth could respond. Once more seated on his stool he added
+interrogatively:
+
+"Did you think you heard something moving outside?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You were saying something when I went out. Pardon my interruption."
+
+Farnsworth gave the priest a searching and not wholly confiding look.
+
+"You did not interrupt me, Father Beret. I was not speaking. Why are
+you so watchful? Are you afraid of eavesdroppers?"
+
+"You were speaking recklessly. Your words were incendiary: ardentia
+verba. My son, you were suggesting a dangerous thing. Your life would
+scarcely satisfy the law were you convicted of insinuating such
+treason. What if one of your prowling guards had overheard you? Your
+neck and mine might feel the halter. Quod avertat dominus." He crossed
+himself and in a solemn voice added in English:
+
+"May the Lord forbid! Ah, my son, we priests protect those we love."
+
+"And I, who am not fit to tie a priest's shoe, do likewise. Father, I
+love Alice Roussillon."
+
+"Love is a holy thing, my son. Amare divinum est et humanum."
+
+"Father Beret, can you help me?"
+
+"Spiritually speaking, my son?"
+
+"I mean, can you hide Mademoiselle Roussillon in some safe place, if I
+take her out of the prison yonder? That's just what I mean. Can you do
+it?"
+
+"Your question is a remarkable one. Have you thought upon it from all
+directions, my son? Think of your position, your duty as an officer."
+
+A shrewd polemical expression beamed from Father Beret's eyes, and a
+very expert physiogomist might have suspected duplicity from certain
+lines about the old man's mouth.
+
+"I simply know that I cannot stand by and see Alice--Mademoiselle
+Roussillon, forced to suffer treatment too beastly for an Indian thief.
+That's the only direction there is for me to look at it from, and you
+can understand my feelings if you will; you know that very well, Father
+Beret. When a man loves a girl, he loves her; that's the whole thing.".
+
+The quiet, inscrutable half-smile flickered once more on Father Beret's
+face; but he sat silent some time with a sinewy forefinger lying
+alongside his nose. When at last he spoke it was in a tone of voice
+indicative of small interest in what he was saying. His words rambled
+to their goal with the effect of happy accident.
+
+"There are places in this neighborhood in which a human being would be
+as hard to find as the flag that you and Governor Hamilton have so
+diligently and unsuccessfully been in quest of for the past month or
+two. Really, my son, this is a mysterious little town."
+
+Farnsworth's eyes widened and a flush rose in his swarthy cheeks.
+
+"Damn the flag!" he exclaimed. "Let it lie hidden forever; what do I
+care? I tell you, Father Beret, that Alice Roussillon is in extreme
+danger. Governor Hamilton means to put some terrible punishment on her.
+He has a devil's vindictiveness. He showed it to me clearly awhile ago."
+
+"You showed something of the same sort to me, once upon a time, my son."
+
+"Yes, I did, Father Beret, and I got a load of slugs in my shoulder for
+it from that brave girl's pistol. She saved your life. Now I ask you to
+help me save hers; or, if not her life, what is infinitely more, her
+honor."
+
+"Her honor!" cried Father Beret, leaping to his feet so suddenly and
+with such energy that the cabin shook from base to roof. "What do you
+say, Captain Farnsworth? What do you mean?"
+
+The old man was transformed. His face was terrible to see, with its
+narrow, burning eyes deep under the shaggy brows, its dark veins
+writhing snakelike on the temples and forehead, the projected mouth and
+chin, the hard lines of the jaws, the iron-gray gleam from all the
+features--he looked like an aged tiger stiffened for a spring.
+
+Farnsworth was made of right soldierly stuff; but he felt a distinct
+shiver flit along his back. His past life had not lacked thrilling
+adventures and strangely varied experiences with desperate men. Usually
+he met sudden emergencies rather calmly, sometimes with phlegmatic
+indifference. This passionate outburst on the priest's part, however,
+surprised him and awed him, while it stirred his heart with a profound
+sympathy unlike anything he had ever felt before.
+
+Father Beret mastered himself in a moment, and passing his hand over
+his face, as if to brush away the excitement, sat down again on his
+stool. He appeared to collapse inwardly.
+
+"You must excuse the weakness of an old man, my son," he said, in a
+voice hoarse and shaking. "But tell me what is going to be done with
+Alice. Your words--what you said--I did not understand."
+
+He rubbed his forehead slowly, as one who has difficulty in trying to
+collect his thoughts.
+
+"I do not know what Governor Hamilton means to do, Father Beret. It
+will be something devilish, however,--something that must not happen,"
+said Farnsworth.
+
+Then he recounted all that Hamilton had done and said. He described the
+dreary and comfortless room in which Alice was confined, the miserable
+fare given her, and how she would be exposed to the leers and low
+remarks of the soldiers. She had already suffered these things, and now
+that she could no longer have any protection, what was to become of
+her? He did not attempt to overstate the case; but presented it with a
+blunt sincerity which made a powerfully realistic impression.
+
+Father Beret, like most men of strong feeling who have been subjected
+to long years of trial, hardship, multitudinous dangers and all sorts
+of temptation, and who have learned the lessons of self-control, had an
+iron will, and also an abiding distrust of weak men. He saw
+Farnsworth's sincerity; but he had no faith in his constancy, although
+satisfied that while resentment of Hamilton's imperiousness lasted, he
+would doubtless remain firm in his purpose to aid Alice. Let that wear
+off, as in a short time it would, and then what? The old man studied
+his companion with eyes that slowly resumed their expression of
+smouldering and almost timid geniality. His priestly experience with
+desperate men was demanding of him a proper regard for that subtlety of
+procedure which had so often compassed most difficult ends.
+
+He listened in silence to Farnsworth's story. When it came to an end he
+began to offer some but half relevant suggestions in the form of
+indirect cross-questions, by means of which he gradually drew out a
+minute description of Alice's prison, the best way to reach it, the
+nature of its door-fastenings, where the key was kept, and everything,
+indeed, likely to be helpful to one contemplating a jail delivery.
+Farnsworth was inwardly delighted. He felt Father Beret's cunning
+approach to the central object and his crafty method of gathering
+details.
+
+The shades of evening thickened in the stuffy cabin room while the
+conversation went on. Father Beret presently lifted a puncheon in one
+corner of the floor and got out a large bottle, which bore a mildewed
+and faded French label, and with it a small iron cup. There was just
+light enough left to show a brownish sparkle when, after popping out
+the cork, he poured a draught in the fresh cup and in his own.
+
+"We may think more clearly, my son, if we taste this old liquor. I have
+kept it a long while to offer upon a proper occasion. The occasion is
+here."
+
+A ravishing bouquet quickly imbued the air. It was itself an
+intoxication.
+
+"The Brothers of St. Martin distilled this liquor," Father Beret added,
+handing the cup to Farnsworth, "not for common social drinking, my son,
+but for times when a man needs extraordinary stimulation. It is said to
+be surpassingly good, because St. Martin blessed the vine."
+
+The doughty Captain felt a sudden and imperious thirst seize his
+throat. The liquor flooded his veins before his lips touched the cup.
+He had been abstaining lately; now his besetting appetite rushed upon
+him. At one gulp he took in the fiery yet smooth and captivating
+draught. Nor did he notice that Father Beret, instead of joining him in
+the potation, merely lifted his cup and set it down again, smacking his
+lips gusto.
+
+There followed a silence, during which the aromatic breath of the
+bottle increased its dangerous fascination. Then Father Beret again
+filled Farnsworth's cup and said:
+
+"Ah, the blessed monks, little thought they that their matchless brew
+would ever be sipped in a poor missionary's hut on the Wabash! But,
+after all, my son, why not here as well as in sunny France? Our object
+justifies any impropriety of time and place."
+
+"You are right, Father. I drink to our object. Yes, I say, to our
+object."
+
+In fact, the drinking preceded his speech, and his tongue already had a
+loop in it The liquor stole through him, a mist of bewildering and
+enchanting influence. The third cup broke his sentences into
+unintelligible fragments; the fourth made his underjaw sag loosely, the
+fifth and sixth, taken in close succession, tumbled him limp on the
+floor, where he slept blissfully all night long, snugly covered with
+some of Father Beret's bed clothes.
+
+"Per casum obliquum, et per indirectum," muttered the priest, when he
+had returned the bottle and cup to their hiding-place." The end
+justifies the means. Sleep well, my son. Ah, little Alice, little
+Alice, your old Father will try--will try!"
+
+He fumbled along the wall in the dark until he found the rapier, which
+he took down; then he went out and sat for some time motionless beside
+the door, while the clouds thickened overhead. It was late when he
+arose and glided away shadow-like toward the fort, over which the night
+hung black, chill and drearily silent. The moon was still some hours
+high, smothered by the clouds; a fog slowly drifted from the river.
+
+Meantime Hamilton and Helm had spent a part of the afternoon and
+evening, as usual, at cards. Helm broke off the game and went to his
+quarters rather early for him, leaving the Governor alone and in a bad
+temper, because Farnsworth, when he had sent for him, could not be
+found. Three times his orderly returned in as many hours with the same
+report; the Captain had not been seen or heard of. Naturally this
+sudden and complete disappearance, immediately after the reprimand,
+suggested to Hamilton an unpleasant possibility. What if Farnsworth had
+deserted him? Down deep in his heart he was conscious that the young
+man had good cause for almost any desperate action. To lose Captain
+Farnsworth, however, would be just now a calamity. The Indians were
+drifting over rapidly to the side of the Americans, and every day
+showed that the French could not long be kept quiet.
+
+Hamilton sat for some time after Helm's departure, thinking over what
+he now feared was a foolish mistake. Presently he buckled on Alice's
+rapier, which he had lately been wearing as his own, and went out into
+the main area of the stockade. A sentinel was tramping to and fro at
+the gate, where a hazy lantern shone. The night was breathless and
+silent. Hamilton approached the soldier on duty and asked him if he had
+seen Captain Farnsworth, and receiving a negative reply, turned about
+puzzled and thoughtful to walk back and forth in the chill, foggy air.
+
+Presently a faint yellow light attracted his attention. It shone
+through a porthole in an upper room of the block-house at the farther
+angle of the stockade. In fact, Alice was reading by a sputtering lamp
+a book Farnsworth had sent her, a volume of Ronsard that he had picked
+up in Canada. Hamilton made his way in that direction, at first merely
+curious to know who was burning oil so late; but after a few paces he
+recognized where the light came from, and instantly suspected that
+Captain Farnsworth was there. Indeed he felt sure of it. Somehow he
+could not regard Alice as other than a saucy hoyden, incapable of
+womanly virtue. His experience with the worst element of Canadian
+French life and his peculiar cast of mind and character colored his
+impression of her. He measured her by the women with whom the coureurs
+de bois and half-breed trappers consorted in Detroit and at the posts
+eastward to Quebec.
+
+Alice, unable to sleep, had sought forgetfulness of her bitter
+captivity in the old poet's charming lyrics. She sat on the floor, some
+blankets and furs drawn around her, the book on her lap, the stupidly
+dull lamp hanging beside her on a part of the swivel. Her hair lay
+loose over her neck and shoulders and shimmered around her face with a
+cloud-like effect, giving to the features in their repose a setting
+that intensified their sweetness and sadness. In a very low but
+distinct voice was reading, with a slightly quavering emotion:
+
+    "Mignonne, allons voir si la rose,
+    Que ce matin avoit desclose
+    Sa robe de pourpe au soleil."
+
+When Hamilton, after stealthily mounting the rough stairway which led
+to her door, peeped in through a space between the slabs and felt a
+stroke of disappointment, seeing at a glance that Farnsworth was not
+there. He gazed for some time, not without a sense of villainy, while
+she continued her sweetly monotonous reading. If his heart had been as
+hard as the iron swivel-balls that lay beside Alice, he must still have
+felt a thrill of something like tender sympathy. She now showed no
+trace of the vivacious sauciness which had heretofore always marked her
+features when she was in his presence. A dainty gentleness, touched
+with melancholy, gave to her face an appealing look all the more
+powerful on account of its unconscious simplicity of expression.
+
+The man felt an impulse pure and noble, which would have borne him back
+down the ladder and away from the building, had not a stronger one set
+boldly in the opposite direction. There was a short struggle with the
+seared remnant of his better nature, and then he tried to open the
+door; but it was locked.
+
+Alice heard the slight noise and breaking off her reading turned to
+look. Hamilton made another effort to enter before he recollected that
+the wooden key, or notched lever, that controlled the cumbrous wooden
+lock, hung on a peg beside the door. He felt for it along the wall, and
+soon laid his hand on it. Then again he peeped through to see Alice,
+who was now standing upright near the swivel. She had thrown her hair
+back from her face and neck; the lamp's flickering light seemed
+suddenly to have magnified her stature and enhanced her beauty. Her
+book lay on the tumbled wraps at her feet, and in either hand she
+grasped a swivel-shot.
+
+Hamilton's combative disposition came to the aid of his baser passion
+when he saw once more a defiant flash from his prisoner's face. It was
+easy for him to be fascinated by opposition. Helm had profited by this
+trait as much as others had suffered by it; but, in the case of Alice,
+Hamilton's mingled resentment and admiration were but a powerful
+irritant to the coarsest and most dangerous side of his nature.
+
+After some fumbling and delay he fitted the key with a steady hand and
+moved the wooden bolt creaking and jolting from its slot. Then flinging
+the clumsy door wide open, he stepped in.
+
+Alice started when she recognized the midnight intruder, and a second
+deeper look into his countenance made her brave heart recoil, while
+with a sinking sensation her breath almost stopped. It was but a
+momentary weakness, however, followed by vigorous reaction.
+
+"What are you here for, sir?" she demanded. "What do you want?"
+
+"I am neither a burglar nor a murderer, Mademoiselle," he responded,
+lifting his hat and bowing, with a smile not in the least reassuring.
+
+"You look like both. Stop where you are!"
+
+"Not so loud, my dear Miss Roussillon; I am not deaf. And besides the
+garrison needs to sleep."
+
+"Stop, sir; not another step."
+
+She poised herself, leaning slightly backward, and held the iron ball
+in her right hand ready to throw it at him.
+
+He halted, still smiling villainously.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I assure you that your excitement is quite unnecessary.
+I am not here to harm you."
+
+"You cannot harm me, you cowardly wretch!"
+
+"Humph! Pride goes before a fall, wench," he retorted, taking a
+half-step backward. Then a thought arose in his mind which added a new
+shade to the repellent darkness of his countenance.
+
+"Miss Roussillon," he said in English and with a changed voice, which
+seemed to grow harder, each word deliberately emphasized, "I have come
+to break some bad news to you."
+
+"You would scarcely bring me good news, sir, and I am not curious to
+hear the bad."
+
+He was silent for a little while, gazing at her with the sort of
+admiration from which a true woman draws away appalled. He saw how she
+loathed him, saw how impossible it was for him to get a line nearer to
+her by any turn of force or fortune. Brave, high-headed, strong as a
+young leopard, pure and sweet as a rose, she stood before him fearless,
+even aggressive, showing him by every line of her face and form that
+she felt her infinite superiority and meant to maintain it. Her whole
+personal expression told him he was defeated; therefore he quickly
+seized upon a suggestion caught from a transaction with Long-Hair, who
+had returned a few hours before from his pursuit of Beverley.
+
+"It pains me, I assure you, Miss Roussillon, to tell you what will
+probably grieve you deeply," he presently added; "but I have not been
+unaware of your tender interest in Lieutenant Beverley, and when I had
+bad news from him, I thought it my duty to inform you."
+
+He paused, feeling with a devil's satisfaction the point of his
+statement go home to the girl's heart.
+
+The wind was beginning to blow outside, shaking open the dark clouds
+and letting gleams of moonlight flicker on the thinning fog. A ghostly
+ray came through a crack between the logs and lit Alice's face with a
+pathetic wanness. She moved her lips as if speaking, but Hamilton heard
+no sound.
+
+"The Indian, Long-Hair, whom I sent upon Lieutenant Beverley's trail,
+reported to me this afternoon that his pursuit had been quite
+successful. He caught his game."
+
+Alice's voice came to her now. She drew in a quivering breath of relief.
+
+"Then he is here--he is--you have him a prisoner again?"
+
+"A part of him, Miss Roussillon. Enough to be quite sure that there is
+one traitor who will trouble his king no more. Mr. Long-Hair brought in
+the Lieutenant's scalp."
+
+Alice received this horrible statement in silence; but her face
+blanched and she stood as if frozen by the shock. The shifty
+moon-glimmer and the yellow glow of the lamp showed Hamilton to what an
+extent his devilish cruelty hurt her, and somehow it chilled him as if
+by reflection; but he could not forego another thrust.
+
+"He deserved hanging, and would have got it had he been brought to me
+alive. So after all, you should be satisfied. He escaped my vengeance
+and Long-Hair got his pay. You see I am the chief sufferer."
+
+These words, however, fell without effect upon the girl's ears, in
+which was booming the awful, storm-like roar of her excitement. She did
+not see her persecutor standing there; her vision, unhindered by walls
+and distance, went straight away to a place in the wilderness, where
+all mangled and disfigured Beverley lay dead. A low cry broke from her
+lips; she dropped the heavy swivel-balls; and then, like a bird,
+swiftly, with a rustling swoop, she went past Hamilton and down the
+stair.
+
+For perhaps a full minute the man stood there motionless, stupefied,
+amazed; and when at length he recovered himself, it was with difficulty
+that he followed her. Everything seemed to hinder him. When he reached
+the open air, however, he quickly regained his activity of both mind
+and body, and looked in all directions. The clouds were breaking into
+parallel masses with streaks of sky between. The moon hanging aslant
+against the blue peeped forth just in time to show him a flying figure
+which, even while he looked, reached the postern, opened it and slipped
+through.
+
+With but a breath of hesitation between giving the alarm and following
+Alice silently and alone, he chose the latter. He was a swift runner
+and light footed. With a few bounds he reached the little gate, which
+was still oscillating on its hinges, darted through and away, straining
+every muscle in desperate pursuit, gaining rapidly in the race, which
+bore eastward along the course twice before chosen by Alice in leaving
+the stockade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A MARCH THROUGH COLD WATER
+
+
+On the fifth day of February, 1779, Colonel George Rogers Clark led an
+army across the Kaskaskia River and camped. This was the first step in
+his march towards the Wabash. An army! Do not smile. Fewer than two
+hundred men, it is true, answered the roll-call, when Father Gibault
+lifted the Cross and blessed them; but every name told off by the
+company sergeants belonged to a hero, and every voice making response
+struck a full note in the chorus of freedom's morning song.
+
+It was an army, small indeed, but yet an army; even though so rudely
+equipped that, could we now see it before us, we might wonder of what
+use it could possibly be in a military way.
+
+We should nevertheless hardly expect that a hundred and seventy of our
+best men, even if furnished with the latest and most deadly engines of
+destruction, could do what those pioneers cheerfully undertook and
+gloriously accomplished in the savage wilderness which was to be the
+great central area of the United States of America.
+
+We look back with a shiver of awe at the three hundred Spartans for
+whom Simonides composed his matchless epitaph. They wrought and died
+gloriously; that was Greek. The one hundred and seventy men, who, led
+by the backwoodsman, Clark, made conquest of an empire's area for
+freedom in the west, wrought and lived gloriously; that was American.
+It is well to bear in mind this distinction by which our civilization
+separates itself from that of old times. Our heroism has always been of
+life--our heroes have conquered and lived to see the effect of
+conquest. We have fought all sorts of wars and have never yet felt
+defeat. Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, all lived to enjoy, after
+successful war, a triumphant peace. "These Americans," said a witty
+Frenchman, "are either enormously lucky, or possessed of miraculous
+vitality. You rarely kill them in battle, and if you wound them their
+wounds are never mortal. Their history is but a chain of
+impossibilities easily accomplished. Their undertakings have been
+without preparation, their successes in the nature of stupendous
+accidents." Such a statement may appear critically sound from a Gallic
+point of view; but it leaves out the dominant element of American
+character, namely, heroic efficiency. From the first we have had the
+courage to undertake, the practical common sense which overcomes the
+lack of technical training, and the vital force which never flags under
+the stress of adversity.
+
+Clark knew, when he set out on his march to Vincennes, that he was not
+indulging a visionary impulse. The enterprise was one that called for
+all that manhood could endure, but not more. With the genius of a born
+leader he measured his task by his means. He knew his own courage and
+fortitude, and understood the best capacity of his men. He had genius;
+that is, he possessed the secret of extracting from himself and from
+his followers the last refinement of devotion to purpose. There was a
+certainty, from first to last, that effort would not flag at any point
+short of the top-most possible strain.
+
+The great star of America was no more than a nebulous splendor on the
+horizon in 1779. It was a new world forming by the law of youth. The
+men who bore the burdens of its exacting life were mostly stalwart
+striplings who, before the down of adolescence fairly sprouted on their
+chins, could swing the ax, drive a plow, close with a bear or kill an
+Indian. Clark was not yet twenty-seven when he made his famous
+campaign. A tall, brawny youth, whose frontier experience had enriched
+a native character of the best quality, he marched on foot at the head
+of his little column, and was first to test every opposing danger. Was
+there a stream to wade or swim? Clark enthusiastically shouted, "Come
+on!" and in he plunged. Was there a lack of food? "I'm not hungry," he
+cried. "Help yourselves, men!" Had some poor soldier lost his blanket?
+"Mine is in my way," said Clark. "Take it, I'm glad to get rid of it!"
+His men loved him, and would die rather than fall short of his
+expectations.
+
+The march before them lay over a magnificent plain, mostly prairie,
+rich as the delta of the Nile, but extremely difficult to traverse. The
+distance, as the route led, was about a hundred and seventy miles. On
+account of an open and rainy winter all the basins and flat lands were
+inundated, often presenting leagues of water ranging in depth from a
+few inches to three of four feet. Cold winds blew, sometimes with spits
+of snow and dashes of sleet, while thin ice formed on the ponds and
+sluggish streams. By day progress meant wading ankle-deep, knee-deep,
+breast-deep, with an occasional spurt of swimming. By night the brave
+fellows had to sleep, if sleep they could, on the cold ground in soaked
+clothing under water-heavy blankets. They flung the leagues behind
+them, however, cheerfully stimulating one another by joke and
+challenge, defying all the bitterness of weather, all the bitings of
+hunger, all the toil, danger and deprivation of a trackless and
+houseless wilderness, looking only eastward, following their youthful
+and intrepid commander to one of the most valuable victories gained by
+American soldiers during the War of the Revolution.
+
+Colonel Clark understood perfectly the strategic importance of
+Vincennes as a post commanding the Wabash, and as a base of
+communication with the many Indian tribes north of the Ohio and east of
+the Mississippi. Francis Vigo (may his name never fade!) had brought
+him a comprehensive and accurate report of Hamilton's strength and the
+condition of the fort and garrison. This information confirmed his
+belief that it would be possible not only to capture Vincennes, but
+Detroit as well.
+
+Just seven days after the march began, the little army encamped for a
+night's rest at the edge of a wood; and here, just after nightfall,
+when the fires were burning merrily and the smell of broiling buffalo
+steaks burdened the damp air, a wizzened old man suddenly appeared, how
+or from where nobody had observed He was dirty and in every way
+disreputable in appearance, looking like an animated mummy, bearing a
+long rifle on his shoulder, and walking with the somewhat halting
+activity of a very old, yet vivacious and energetic simian. Of course
+it was Oncle Jason, "Oncle Jazon sui generis," as Father Beret had
+dubbed him.
+
+"Well, here I am!" he cried, approaching the fire by which Colonel
+Clark and some of his officers were cooking supper, "but ye can't guess
+in a mile o' who I am to save yer livers and lights."
+
+He danced a few stiff steps, which made the water gush out of his
+tattered moccasins, then doffed his nondescript cap and nodded his
+scalpless head in salutation to the commander.
+
+Clark looked inquiringly at him, while the old fellow grimaced and
+rubbed his shrunken chin.
+
+"I smelt yer fat a fryin' somepin like a mile away, an' it set my
+in'ards to grumblin' for a snack; so I jes thought I'd drap in on ye
+an' chaw wittles wi' ye."
+
+"Your looks are decidedly against you," remarked the Colonel with a dry
+smile. He had recognized Oncle Jazon after a little sharp scrutiny. "I
+suppose, however, that we can let you gnaw the bones after we've got
+off the meat."
+
+"Thank 'ee, thank 'ee, plenty good. A feller 'at's as hongry as I am
+kin go through a bone like a feesh through water."
+
+Clark laughed and said:
+
+"I don't see any teeth that you have worth mentioning, but your gums
+may be unusually sharp."
+
+"Ya-a-s, 'bout as sharp as yer wit, Colonel Clark, an' sharper'n yer
+eyes, a long shot. Ye don't know me, do ye? Take ernother squint at me,
+an' see'f ye kin 'member a good lookin' man!"
+
+"You have somewhat the appearance of an old scamp by the name of Jazon
+that formerly loafed around with a worthless gun on his shoulder, and
+used to run from every Indian he saw down yonder in Kentucky." Clark
+held out his hand and added cordially:
+
+"How are you, Jazon, my old friend, and where upon earth have you come
+from?"
+
+Oncle Jazon pounced upon the hand and gripped it in his own knotted
+fingers, gazing delightedly up into Clark's bronzed and laughing face.
+
+"Where'd I come frum? I come frum ever'wheres. Fust time I ever got
+lost in all my born days. Fve been a trompin' 'round in the water seems
+like a week, crazy as a pizened rat, not a knowin' north f'om south,
+ner my big toe f'om a turnip! Who's got some tobacker?"
+
+Oncle Jazon's story, when presently he told it, interested Clark
+deeply. In the first place he was glad to hear that Simon Kenton had
+once more escaped from the Indians; and the news from Beverley,
+although bad enough, left room for hope. Frontiersmen always regarded
+the chances better than even, so long as there was life. Oncle Jazon,
+furthermore, had much to tell about the situation at Vincennes, the
+true feeling of the French inhabitants, the lukewarm friendship of the
+larger part of the Indians for Hamilton, and, indeed, everything that
+Clark wished to know regarding the possibilities of success in his
+arduous undertaking. The old man's advent cheered the whole camp. He
+soon found acquaintances and friends among the French volunteers from
+Kaskaskia, with whom he exchanged creole gestures and chatter with a
+vivacity apparently inexhaustible. He and Kenton had, with wise
+judgement, separated on escaping from the Indian camp, Kenton striking
+out for Kentucky, while Oncle Jazon went towards Kaskaskia.
+
+The information that Beverley would be shot as soon as he was returned
+to Hamilton, caused Colonel Clark serious worry of mind. Not only the
+fact that Beverley, who had been a charming friend and a most gallant
+officer, was now in such imminent danger, but the impression (given by
+Oncle Jazon's account) that he had broken his parole, was deeply
+painful to the brave and scrupulously honorable commander. Still,
+friendship rose above regret, and Clark resolved to push his little
+column forward all the more rapidly, hoping to arrive in time to
+prevent the impending execution.
+
+Next morning the march was resumed at the break of dawn; but a swollen
+stream caused some hours of delay, during which Beverley himself
+arrived from the rear, a haggard and weirdly unkempt apparition. He had
+been for three days following hard on the army's track, which he came
+to far westward. Oncle Jazon saw him first in the distance, and his old
+but educated eyes made no mistake.
+
+"Yander's that youngster Beverley," he exclaimed. "Ef it ain't I'm a
+squaw!"
+
+Nor did he parley further on the subject; but set off at a rickety trot
+to meet and assist the fagged and excited young man.
+
+Clark had given Oncle Jazon his flask, which contained a few gills of
+whisky. This was the first thing offered to Beverley; who wisely took
+but a swallow. Oncle Jazon was so elated that he waved his cap on high,
+and unconsciously falling into French, yelled in a piercing voice:
+
+"VIVE ZHORSH VASINTON! VIVE LA BANNIERE D'ALICE ROUSSILLON!"
+
+Seeing Beverley reminded him of Alice and the flag. As for Beverley,
+the sentiment braced him, and the beloved name brimmed his heart with
+sweetness.
+
+Clark went to meet them as they came in. He hugged the gaunt Lieutenant
+with genuine fervor of joy, while Oncle Jazon ran around them making a
+series of grotesque capers. The whole command, hearing Oncle Jazon's
+patriotic words, set up a wild shouting on the spur of a general
+impression that Beverley came as a messenger bearing glorious news from
+Washington's army in the east.
+
+It was a great relief to Clark when he found out that his favorite
+Lieutenant had not broken his parole; but had instead boldly
+resurrendered himself, declaring the obligation no longer binding, and
+notifying Hamilton of his intention to go away with the purpose of
+returning and destroying him and his command. Clark laughed heartily
+when this explanation brought out Beverley's tender interest in Alice;
+but he sympathized cordially; for he himself knew what love is.
+
+Although Beverley was half starved and still suffering from the kicks
+and blows given him by Long-Hair and his warriors, his exhausting run
+on the trail of Clark aad his band had not worked him serious harm. All
+of the officers and men did their utmost to serve him. He was feasted
+without stint and furnished with everything that the scant supply of
+clothing on the pack horses could afford for his comfort. He promptly
+asked for an assignment to duty in his company and took his place with
+such high enthusiasm that his companions regarded him with admiring
+wonder. None of them save Clark and Oncle Jazon suspected that love for
+a fair-haired girl yonder in Vincennes was the secret of his amazing
+zeal and intrepidity.
+
+In one respect Clark's expedition was sadly lacking in its equipment
+for the march. It had absolutely no means of transporting adequate
+supplies. The pack-horses were not able to carry more than a little
+extra ammunition, a few articles of clothing, some simple cooking
+utensils and such tools as were needed in improvising rafts and canoes.
+Consequently, although buffalo and deer were sometimes plentiful, they
+furnished no lasting supply of meat, because it could not be
+transported; and as the army neared Vincennes wild animals became
+scarce, so that the men began to suffer from hunger when within but a
+few days of their journey's end.
+
+Clark made almost superhuman efforts in urging forward his chilled,
+water-soaked, foot-sore command; and when hunger added its torture to
+the already disheartening conditions, his courage and energy seemed to
+burn stronger and brighter. Beverley was always at his side ready to
+undertake any task, accept any risk; his ardor made his face glow, and
+he seemed to thrive upon hardships. The two men were a source of
+inspiration--their followers could not flag and hesitate while under
+the influence of their example.
+
+Toward the end of the long march a decided fall of temperature added
+ice to the water through which our dauntless patriots waded and swam
+for miles. The wind shifted northwesterly, taking on a searching chill.
+Each gust, indeed, seemed to shoot wintry splinters into the very
+marrow of the men's bones. The weaker ones began to show the approach
+of utter exhaustion just at the time when a final spurt of unflinching
+power was needed. True, they struggled heroically; but nature was
+nearing the inexorable limit of endurance. Without food, which there
+was no prospect of getting, collapse was sure to come.
+
+Standing nearly waist-deep in freezing water and looking out upon the
+muddy, sea-like flood that stretched far away to the channel of the
+Wabash and beyond, Clark turned to Beverley and said, speaking low, so
+as not to be overheard by any other of his officers or men:
+
+"Is it possible, Lieutenant Beverley, that we are to fail, with
+Vincennes almost in sight of us?"
+
+"No, sir, it is not possible," was the firm reply. "Nothing must,
+nothing can stop us. Look at that brave child! He sets the heroic
+example."
+
+Beverley pointed, as he spoke, at a boy but fourteen years old, who was
+using his drum as a float to bear him up while he courageously swam
+beside the men.
+
+Clark's clouded face cleared once more. "You are right," he said, "come
+on! we must win or die."
+
+"Sergeant Dewit," he added, turning to an enormously tall and athletic
+man near by, "take that little drummer and his drum on your shoulder
+and lead the way. And, sergeant, make him pound that drum like the
+devil beating tan-bark!"
+
+The huge man caught the spirit of his commander's order. In a twinkling
+he had the boy astride of his neck with the kettle-drum resting on his
+head, and then the rattling music began. Clark followed, pointing
+onward with his sword. The half frozen and tottering soldiers sent up a
+shout that went back to where Captain Bowman was bringing up the rear
+under orders to shoot every man that straggled or shrank from duty.
+
+Now came a time when not a mouthful of food was left. A whole day they
+floundered on, starving, growing fainter at every step, the temperature
+falling, the ice thickening. They camped on high land; and next morning
+they heard Hamilton's distant sunrise gun boom over the water.
+
+"One half-ration for the men," said Clark, looking disconsolately in
+the direction whence the sound had come. "Just five mouthfuls apiece,
+even, and I'll have Hamilton and his fort within forty-eight hours."
+
+"We will have the provisions, Colonel, or I will die trying to get
+them," Beverley responded "Depend upon me."
+
+They had constructed some canoes in which to transport the weakest of
+the men.
+
+"I will take a dugout and some picked fellows. We will pull to the wood
+yonder, and there we shall find some kind of game which has been forced
+to shelter from the high water."
+
+It was a cheerful view of a forlorn hope. Clark grasped the hand
+extended by Beverley and they looked encouragement into each other's
+eyes.
+
+Oncle Jazon volunteered to go in the pirogue. He was ready for
+anything, everything.
+
+"I can't shoot wo'th a cent," he whined, as they took their places in
+the cranky pirogue; "but I might jes' happen to kill a squir'l or a
+elephant or somepin 'nother."
+
+"Very well," shouted Clark in a loud, cheerful voice, when they had
+paddled away to a considerable distance, "bring the meat to the woods
+on the hill yonder," pointing to a distant island-like ridge far beyond
+the creeping flood. "We'll be there ready to eat it!"
+
+He said this for the ears of his men. They heard and answered with a
+straggling but determined chorus of approval. They crossed the rolling
+current of the Wabash by a tedious process of ferrying, and at last
+found themselves once more wading in back-water up to their armpits,
+breaking ice an inch thick as they went. It was the closing struggle to
+reach the high wooded lands. Many of them fell exhausted; but their
+stronger comrades lifted them, holding their heads above water, and
+dragged them on.
+
+Clark, always leading, always inspiring, was first to set foot on dry
+land. He shouted triumphantly, waved his sword, and then fell to
+helping the men out of the freezing flood. This accomplished, he
+ordered fires built; but there was not a soldier of them all whose
+hands could clasp an ax-handle, so weak and numbed with cold were they.
+He was not to be baffled, however. If fire could not be had, exercise
+must serve its purpose. Hastily pouring some powder into his hand he
+dampened it and blacked his face. "Victory, men, victory!" he shouted,
+taking off his hat and beginning to leap and dance. "Come on! We'll
+have a war dance and then a feast, as soon as the meat arrives that I
+have sent for. Dance! you brave lads, dance! Victory! victory!"
+
+The strong men, understanding their Colonel's purpose, took hold of the
+delicate ones; and the leaping, the capering, the tumult of voices and
+the stamping of slushy moccasins with which they assaulted that stately
+forest must have frightened every wild thing thereabout into a deadly
+rigor, dark's irrepressible energy and optimism worked a veritable
+charm upon his faithful but almost dying companions in arms. Their
+trust in him made them feel sure that food would soon be forthcoming.
+The thought afforded a stimulus more potent than wine; it drove them
+into an ecstasy of frantic motion and shouting which soon warmed them
+thoroughly.
+
+It is said that fortune favors the brave. The larger meaning of the
+sentence may be given thus: God guards those who deserve His
+protection. History tells us that just when Clark halted his command
+almost in sight of Vincennes--just when hunger was about to prevent the
+victory so close to his grasp--a party of his scouts brought in the
+haunch of a buffalo captured from some Indians. The scouts were
+Lieutenant Beverley and Oncle Jazon. And with the meat they brought
+Indian kettles in which to cook it.
+
+With consummate forethought Clark arranged to prevent his men doing
+themselves injury by bolting their food or eating it half-cooked. Broth
+was first made and served hot; then small bits of well broiled steak
+were doled out, until by degrees the fine effect of nourishment set in,
+and all the command felt the fresh courage of healthy reaction.
+
+"I ain't no gin'ral, nor corp'ral, nor nothin'," remarked Oncle Jazon
+to Colonel Clark, "but 'f I's you I'd h'ist up every dad dinged ole
+flag in the rig'ment, w'en I got ready to show myself to 'em, an' I'd
+make 'em think, over yander at the fort, 'at I had 'bout ninety
+thousan' men. Hit'd skeer that sandy faced Gov'nor over there till he'd
+think his back-bone was a comin' out'n 'im by the roots."
+
+Clark laughed, but his face showed that the old man's suggestion struck
+him forcibly and seriously.
+
+"We'll see about that presently, Oncle Jazon. Wait till we reach the
+hill yonder, from which the whole town can observe our manoeuvres, then
+we'll try it, maybe."
+
+Once more the men were lined up, the roll-call gone through with
+satisfactorily, and the question put: "Are we ready for another plunge
+through the mud and water?"
+
+The answer came in the affirmative, with a unanimity not to be
+mistaken. The weakest heart of them all beat to the time of the charge
+step. Again Clark and Beverley clasped hands and took the lead.
+
+When they reached the next high ground they gazed in silence across a
+slushy prairie plot to where, on a slight elevation, old Vincennes and
+Fort Sackville lay in full view.
+
+Beverley stood apart. A rush of sensations affected him so that he
+shook like one whose strength is gone. His vision was blurred. Fort and
+town swimming in a mist were silent and still. Save the British flag
+twinkling above Hamilton's headquarters, nothing indicated that the
+place was not deserted. And Alice? With the sweet name's echo
+Beverley's heart bounded high, then sank fluttering at the recollection
+that she was either yonder at the mercy of Hamilton, or already the
+victim of an unspeakable cruelty. Was it weakness for him to lift his
+clasped hands heavenward and send up a voiceless prayer?
+
+While he stood thus Oncle Jazon came softly to his side and touched his
+arm. Beverley started.
+
+"The nex' thing'll be to shoot the everlastin' gizzards outen 'em,
+won't it?" the old man inquired. "I'm jes' a eetchin' to git a grip
+onto that Gov'nor. Ef I don't scelp 'em I'm a squaw."
+
+Beverley drew a deep breath and came promptly back from his dream. It
+was now Oncle Jazon's turn to assume a reflective, reminiscent mood. He
+looked about him with an expression of vague half tenderness on his
+shriveled features.
+
+"I's jes' a thinkin' how time do run past a feller," he presently
+remarked. "Twenty-seven years ago I camped right here wi' my
+wife--ninth one, ef I 'member correct--jes' fresh married to 'r; sort
+o' honey-moon. 'Twus warm an' sunshiny an' nice. She wus a poorty
+squaw, mighty poorty, an' I wus as happy as a tomtit on a sugar-trough.
+We b'iled sap yander on them nobs under the maples. It wus glor'us. Had
+some several wives 'fore an' lots of 'm sence; but she wus sweetes' of
+'m all. Strange how a feller 'members sich things an' feels sort o'
+lonesome like!"
+
+The old man's mouth drooped at the corners and he hitched up his
+buckskin trousers with a ludicrous suggestion of pathos in every line
+of his attitude. Unconsciously he sidled closer to Beverley, remotely
+feeling that he was giving the young man very effective sympathy, well
+knowing that Alice was the sweet burden of his thoughts. It was thus
+Oncle Jazon honestly tried to fortify his friend against what probably
+lay in store for him.
+
+But Beverley failed to catch the old man's crude comfort thus flung at
+him. The analogy was not apparent. Oncle Jazon probably felt that his
+kindness had been ineffectual, for he changed his tone and added:
+
+"But I s'pose a young feller like ye can't onderstan' w'at it is to
+love a 'oman an' 'en hev 'er quit ye for 'nother feller, an' him a buck
+Injin. Wall, wall, wall, that's the way it do go! Of all the livin'
+things upon top o' this yere globe, the mos' onsartin',
+crinkety-crankety an' slippery thing is a young 'oman 'at knows she's
+poorty an' 'at every other man in the known world is blind stavin'
+crazy in love wi' 'er, same as you are. She'll drop ye like a hot tater
+'fore ye know it, an' 'en look at ye jes' pine blank like she never
+knowed ye afore in her life. It's so, Lieutenant, shore's ye'r born. I
+know, for I've tried the odd number of 'em, an' they're all jes' the
+same."
+
+By this time Beverley's ears were deaf to Oncle Jazon's querulous,
+whining voice, and his thoughts once more followed his wistful gaze
+across the watery plain to where the low roofs of the creole town
+appeared dimly wavering in the twilight of eventide, which was fast
+fading into night. The scene seemed unsubstantial; he felt a strange
+lethargy possessing his soul; he could not realize the situation. In
+trying to imagine Alice, she eluded him, so that a sort of cloudy void
+fell across his vision with the effect of baffling and benumbing it. He
+made vain efforts to recall her voice, things that she had said to him,
+her face, her smiles; all he could do was to evoke an elusive,
+tantalizing, ghostly something which made him shiver inwardly with a
+haunting fear that it meant the worst, whatever the worst might be.
+Where was she? Could she be dead, and this the shadowy message of her
+fate?
+
+Darkness fell, and a thin fog began to drift in wan streaks above the
+water. Not a sound, save the suppressed stir of the camp, broke the
+wide, dreary silence. Oncle Jazon babbled until satisfied that Beverley
+was unappreciative, or at least unresponsive.
+
+"Got to hev some terbacker," he remarked, and shambled away in search
+of it among his friends.
+
+A little later Clark approached hastily and said:
+
+"I have been looking for you. The march has begun. Bowman and
+Charleville are moving; come, there's no time to lose."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A DUEL BY MOONLIGHT
+
+
+When Hamilton, after running some distance, saw that he was gaining
+upon Alice and would soon overtake her, it added fresh energy to his
+limbs. He had quickly realized the foolishness of what he had done in
+visiting the room of his prisoner at so late an hour in the night. What
+would his officers and men think? To let Alice escape would be
+extremely embarrassing, and to be seen chasing her would give good
+ground for ridicule on the part of his entire command. Therefore his
+first thought, after passing through the postern and realizing fully
+what sort of predicament threatened him, was to recapture her and
+return her to the prison room in the block-house without attracting
+attention. This now promised to be an easier task than he had at first
+feared; for in the moonlight, which on account of the dispersing
+clouds, was fast growing stronger, he saw her seem to falter and
+weaken. Certainly her flight was checked and took an eccentric turn, as
+if some obstruction had barred her way. He rushed on, not seeing that,
+as Alice swerved, a man intervened. Indeed he was within a few strides
+of laying his hand on her when he saw her make the strange movement. It
+was as if, springing suddenly aside, she had become two persons instead
+of one. But instantly the figures coincided again, and in becoming
+taller faced about and confronted him.
+
+Hamilton stopped short in his tracks. The dark figure was about five
+paces from him. It was not Alice, and a sword flashed dimly but
+unmistakably in a ray of the moon. The motion visible was that of an
+expert swordsman placing himself firmly on his legs, with his weapon at
+guard.
+
+Alice saw the man in her path just in time to avoid running against
+him. Lightly as a flying bird, when it whisks itself in a short
+semicircle past a tree or a bough, she sprang aside and swung around to
+the rear of him, where she could continue her course toward the town.
+But in passing she recognized him. It was Father Beret, and how grim he
+looked! The discovery was made in the twinkling of an eye, and its
+effect was instantaneous, not only checking the force of her flight,
+but stopping her and turning her about to gaze before she had gone five
+paces farther.
+
+Hamilton's nerve held, startled as he was, when he realized that an
+armed man stood before him. Naturally he fell into the error of
+thinking that he had been running after this fellow all the way from
+the little gate, where, he supposed, Alice had somehow given him the
+slip. It was a mere flash of brain-light, so to call it, struck out by
+the surprise of this curious discovery. He felt his bellicose temper
+leap up furiously at being balked in a way so unexpected and withal so
+inexplicable. Of course he did not stand there reasoning it all out.
+The rush of impressions came, and at the same time he acted with
+promptness. Changing the rapier, which he held in his right hand, over
+into his left, he drew a small pistol from the breast of his coat and
+fired. The report was sharp and loud; but it caused no uneasiness or
+inquiry in the fort, owing to the fact that Indians invariably emptied
+their guns when coming into the town.
+
+Hamilton's aim, although hasty, was not bad. The bullet from his weapon
+cut through Father Beret's clothes between his left arm and his body,
+slightly creasing the flesh on a rib. Beyond him it struck heavily and
+audibly. Alice fell limp and motionless to the soft wet ground, where
+cold puddles of water were splintered over with ice. She lay pitifully
+crumpled, one arm outstretched in the moonlight. Father Beret heard the
+bullet hit her, and turned in time to see her stagger backward with a
+hand convulsively pressed over her heart. Her face, slightly upturned
+as she reeled, gave the moon a pallid target for its strengthening
+rays. Sweet, beautiful, its rigid features flashed for a second and
+then half turned away from the light and went down.
+
+Father Beret uttered a short, thin cry and moved as if to go to the
+fallen girl, but just then he saw Hamilton's sword pass over again into
+his right hand, and knew that there was no time for anything but death
+or fight. The good priest did not shirk what might have made the
+readiest of soldiers nervous. Hamilton was known to be a great
+swordsman and proud of the distinction. Father Beret had seen him fence
+with Farnsworth in remarkable form, touching him at will, and in
+ministering to the men in the fort he had heard them talk of the
+Governor's incomparable skill.
+
+A priest is, in perhaps all cases but the last out of a thousand, a man
+of peace, not to be forced into a fight; but the exceptional one out of
+the ten hundred it is well not to stir up if you are looking for an
+easy victim. Hamilton was in the habit of considering every antagonist
+immediately conquerable. His domineering spirit could not, when
+opposed, reckon with any possibility of disaster. As he sprang toward
+Father Beret there was a mutual recognition and, we speak guardedly,
+something that sounded exactly like an exchange of furious execrations.
+As for Father Beret's words, they may have been a mere priestly formula
+of objurgation.
+
+The moon was accommodating. With a beautiful white splendor it entered
+a space of cloudless sky, where it seemed to slip along the dusky blue
+surface among the stars, far over in the west.
+
+"It's you, is it?" Hamilton exclaimed between teeth that almost crushed
+one another. "You prowling hypocrite of hell!"
+
+Father Beret said something. It was not complimentary, and it sounded
+sulphurous, if not profane. Remember, however, that a priest can
+scarcely hope to be better than Peter, and Peter did actually make the
+Simon pure remark when hard pressed. At all events Father Beret said
+something with vigorous emphasis, and met Hamilton half way.
+
+Both men, stimulated to the finger-tips by a draught of imperious
+passion, fairly plunged to the inevitable conflict. Ah, if Alice could
+have seen her beautiful weapons cross, if she could have heard the
+fine, far-reaching clink, clink, clink, while sparks leaped forth,
+dazzling even in the moonlight; if she could have noted the admirable,
+nay, the amazing, play, as the men, regaining coolness to some extent,
+gathered their forces and fell cautiously to the deadly work, it would
+have been enough to change the cold shimmer of her face to a flash of
+warm delight. For she would have understood every feint, longe, parry,
+and seen at a glance how Father Beret set the pace and led the race at
+the beginning. She would have understood; for Father Beret had taught
+her all she knew about the art of fencing.
+
+Hamilton quickly felt, and with a sense of its strangeness, the
+priest's masterly command of his weapon. The surprise called up all his
+caution and cleverness. Before he could adjust himself to such an
+unexpected condition he came near being spitted outright by a pretty
+pass under his guard. The narrow escape, while it put him on his best
+mettle, sent a wave of superstition through his brain. He recalled what
+Barlow had jocularly said about the doings of the devil-priest or
+priest-devil at Roussillon place on that night when the patrol guard
+attempted to take Gaspard Roussillon. Was this, indeed, Father Beret,
+that gentle old man, now before him, or was it an avenging demon from
+the shades?
+
+The thought flitted electrically across his mind, while he deftly
+parried, feinted, longed, giving his dark antagonist all he could do to
+meet the play. Priest or devil, he thought, he cared not which, he
+would reach its vitals presently. Yet there lingered with him a
+haunting half-fear, or tenuous awe, which may have aided, rather than
+hindered his excellent swordsmanship.
+
+Under foot it was slushy with mud, water and ice, the consistency
+varying from a somewhat solid crust to puddles that half inundated
+Hamilton's boots and quite overflowed Father Beret's moccasins. An
+execrable field for the little matter in hand. They gradually shifted
+position. Now it was the Governor, then the priest, who had advantage
+as to the light. For some time Father Beret seemed quite the shiftier
+and surer fighter, but (was it his age telling on him?) he lost
+perceptibly in suppleness. Still Hamilton failed to touch him. There
+was a baffling something in the old man's escape now and again from
+what ought to have been an inevitable stroke. Was it luck? It seemed to
+Hamilton more than that--a sort of uncanny evasion. Or was it supreme
+mastery, the last and subtlest reach of the fencer's craft?
+
+Youth forced age slowly backward in the struggle, which at times took
+on spurts so furious that the slender blades, becoming mere glints of
+acicular steel, split the moonlight back and forth, up and down, so
+that their meetings, following one another in a well-nigh continuous
+stroke, sent a jarring noise through the air. Father Beret lost inch by
+inch, until the fighting was almost over the body of Alice; and now for
+the first time Hamilton became aware of that motionless something with
+the white, luminous face in profile against the ground; but he did not
+let even that unsettle his fencing gaze, which followed the sunken and
+dusky eyes of his adversary. A perspiration suddenly flooded his body,
+however, and began to drip across his face. His arm was tiring. A doubt
+crept like a chill into his heart. Then the priest appeared to add a
+cubit to his stature and waver strangely in the soft light. Behind him,
+low against the sky, a wide winged owl shot noiselessly across just
+above the prairie.
+
+The soul of a true priest is double: it is the soul of a saint and the
+soul of a worldly man. What is most beautiful in this duality is the
+supreme courage with which the saintly spirit attacks the worldly and
+so often heroically masters it. In the beginning of the fight Father
+Beret let a passion of the earthly body take him by storm. It was well
+for Governor Henry Hamilton that the priest was so wrought upon as to
+unsettle his nerves, otherwise there would have been an evil heart
+impaled midway of Father Beret's rapier. A little later the saintly
+spirit began to assert itself, feebly indeed, but surely. Then it was
+that Father Beret seemed to be losing agility for a while as he
+backstepped away from Hamilton's increasing energy of assault. In his
+heart the priest was saying: "I will not murder him. I must not do
+that. He deserves death, but vengeance is not mine. I will disarm him."
+Step by step he retreated, playing erratically to make an opening for a
+trick he meant to use.
+
+It was singularly loose play, a sort of wavering, shifty,
+incomprehensible show of carelessness, that caused Hamilton to
+entertain a doubt, which was really a fear, as to what was going to
+happen; for, notwithstanding all this neglect of due precaution on the
+priest's part, to touch him seemed impossible, miraculously so, and
+every plan of attack dissolved into futility in the most maddening way.
+
+"Priest, devil or ghost!" raged Hamilton, with a froth gathering around
+his mouth; "I'll kill you, or--"
+
+He made a longe, when his adversary left an opening which appeared
+absolutely beyond defence. It was a quick, dextrous, vicious thrust.
+The blade leaped toward Father Beret's heart with a twinkle like
+lightning.
+
+At that moment, although warily alert and hopeful that his opportunity
+was at hand, Father Beret came near losing his life; for as he
+side-stepped and easily parried Hamilton's thrust, which he had
+invited, thinking to entangle his blade and disarm him, he caught his
+foot in Alice's skirt and stumbled, nearly falling across her. It would
+have been easy for Hamilton to run him through, had he instantly
+followed up the advantage. But the moonlight on Alice's face struck his
+eyes, and by that indirect ray of vision which is often strangely
+effective, he recognized her lying there. It was a disconcerting thing
+for him, but he rallied instantly and sprang aside, taking a new
+position just in time to face Father Beret again. A chill crept up his
+back. The horror which he could not shake off enraged him beyond
+measure. Gathering fresh energy, he renewed the assault with desperate
+steadiness the highest product of absolutely molten fury.
+
+Father Beret felt the dangerous access of power in his antagonist's
+arm, and knew that a crisis had arrived. He could not be careless now.
+Here was a swordsman of the best school calling upon him for all the
+skill and strength and cunning that he could command. Again the saintly
+element was near being thrown aside by the worldly in the old man's
+breast. Alice lying there seemed mutely demanding that he avenge her. A
+riotous something in his blood clamored for a quick and certain act in
+this drama by moonlight--a tragic close by a stroke of terrible yet
+perfectly fitting justice.
+
+There was but the space of a breath for the conflict in the priest's
+heart, yet during that little time he reasoned the case and quoted
+scripture to himself.
+
+"Domine, percutimus in gladio?" rang through his mind. "Lord, shall we
+smite with the sword?"
+
+Hamilton seemed to make answer to this with a dazzling display of
+skill. The rapiers sang a strange song above the sleeping girl, a
+lullaby with coruscations of death in every keen note.
+
+Father Beret was thinking of Alice. His brain, playing double,
+calculated with lightning swiftness the chances and movements of that
+whirlwind rush of fight, while at the same time it swept through a
+retrospect of all the years since Alice came into his life. How he had
+watched her grow and bloom; how he had taught her, trained her mind and
+soul and body to high things, loved her with a fatherly passion
+unbounded, guarded her from the coarse and lawless influences of her
+surroundings. Like the tolling of an infinitely melancholy bell, all
+this went through his breast and brain, and, blending with a furious
+current of whatever passions were deadly dangerous in his nature, swept
+as a storm bearing its awful force into his sword-arm.
+
+The Englishman was a lion, the priest a gladiator. The stars aloft in
+the vague, dark, yet splendid, amphitheater were the audience. It was a
+question. Would the thumbs go down or up? Life and death held the
+chances even; but it was at the will of Heaven, not of the stars. "Hoc
+habet" must follow the stroke ordered from beyond the astral clusters
+and the dusky blue.
+
+Hamilton pressed, nay rushed, the fight with a weight and at a pace
+which could not last. But Father Beret withstood him so firmly that he
+made no farther headway; he even lost some ground a moment later.
+
+"You damned Jesuit hypocrite!" he snarled; "you lowest of a vile
+brotherhood of liars!"
+
+Then he rushed again, making a magnificent show of strength, quickness
+and accuracy. The sparks hissed and crackled from the rasping and
+ringing blades.
+
+Father Beret was, in truth, a Jesuit, and as such a zealot; but he was
+not a liar or a hypocrite. Being human, he resented an insult. The
+saintly spirit in him was strong, yet not strong enough to breast the
+indignation which now dashed against it. For a moment it went down.
+
+"Liar and scoundrel yourself!" he retorted, hoarsely forcing the words
+out of his throat. "Spawn of a beastly breed!"
+
+Hamilton saw and felt a change pass over the spirit of the old priest's
+movements. Instantly the sword leaping against his own seemed endowed
+with subtle cunning and malignant treachery. Before this it had been
+difficult enough to meet the fine play and hold fairly even; now he was
+startled and confused; but he rose to the emergency with admirable will
+power and cleverness.
+
+"Murderer of a poor orphan girl!" Father Beret added with a hot
+concentrated accent; "death is too good for you."
+
+Hamilton felt nearer his grave than ever before in all his wild
+experience, for somehow doom, shadowy and formless, like the atmosphere
+of an awful dream, enmisted those words; but he was no weakling to quit
+at the height of desperate conflict. He was strong, expert, and game to
+the middle of his heart.
+
+"I'll add a traitor Jesuit to my list of dead," he panted forth, rising
+yet again to the extremest tension of his power.
+
+As he did this Father Beret settled himself as you have seen a mighty
+horse do in the home stretch of a race. Both men knew that the moment
+had arrived for the final act in their impromptu play. It was short, a
+duel condensed and crowded into fifteen seconds of time, and it was
+rapid beyond the power of words to describe. A bystander, had there
+been one, could not have seen what was finally done or how it was done.
+Father Beret's sword seemed to be revolving--it was a halo in front of
+Hamilton for a mere point of time. The old priest seemed to crouch and
+then make a quick motion as if about to leap backward. A wrench and a
+snip, as of something violently jerked from a fastening, were followed
+by a semicircular flight of Hamilton's rapier over Father Beret's head
+to stick in the ground ten feet behind him. The duel was over, and the
+whole terrible struggle had occupied less than three minutes.
+
+With his wrist strained and his fingers almost broken, Hamilton
+stumbled forward and would have impaled himself had not Father Beret
+turned the point of his weapon aside as he lowered it.
+
+"Surrender, or die!"
+
+That was a strange order for a priest to make, but there could be no
+mistaking its authority or the power behind it. Hamilton regained his
+footing and looked dazed, wheezing and puffing like a porpoise, but he
+clearly understood what was demanded of him.
+
+"If you call out I'll run you through," Father Beret added, seeing him
+move his lips as if to shout for help.
+
+The level rapier now reinforced the words. Hamilton let the breath go
+noiselessly from his mouth and waved his hand in token of enforced
+submission.
+
+"Well, what do you want me to do?" he demanded after a short pause.
+"You seem to have me at your mercy. What are your terms?"
+
+Father Beret hesitated. It was a question difficult to answer.
+
+"Give me your word as a British officer that you will never again try
+to harm any person, not an open, armed enemy, in this town."
+
+Hamilton's gorge rose perversely. He erected himself with lofty reserve
+and folded his arms. The dignity of a Lieutenant Governor leaped into
+him and took control. Father Beret correctly interpreted what he saw.
+
+"My people have borne much," he said, "and the killing of that poor
+child there will be awfully avenged if I but say the word. Besides, I
+can turn every Indian in this wilderness against you in a single day.
+You are indeed at my mercy, and I will be merciful if you will satisfy
+my demand."
+
+He was trembling with emotion while he spoke and the desire to kill the
+man before him was making a frightful struggle with his priestly
+conscience; but conscience had the upper hand. Hamilton stood gazing
+fixedly, pale as a ghost, his thoughts becoming more and more clear and
+logical. He was in a bad situation. Every word that Father Beret had
+spoken was true and went home with force. There was no time for parley
+or subterfuge; the sword looked as if, eager to find his heart, it
+could not be held back another moment. But the wan, cold face of the
+girl had more power than the rapier's hungry point. It made an abject
+coward of him.
+
+"I am willing to give you my word," he presently said. "And let me tell
+you," he went on more rapidly, "I did not shoot at her. She was behind
+you."
+
+"Your word as a British officer?"
+
+Hamilton again stiffened and hesitated, but only for the briefest
+space, then said:
+
+"Yes, my word as a British officer."
+
+Father Beret waved his hand with impatience.
+
+"Go, then, back to your place in the fort and disturb, my people no
+more. The soul of this poor little girl will haunt you forever. Go!"
+
+Hamilton stood a little while gazing at the face of Alice with the
+horrible wistfulness of remorse. What would he not have given to rub
+his eyes and find it all a dream?
+
+He turned away; a cloud scudded across the moon; here and yonder in the
+dim town cocks crowed with a lonesome, desultory effect.
+
+Father Beret plucked up the rapier that he had wrenched from Hamilton's
+hand. It suggested something.
+
+"Hold!" he called out, "give me the scabbard of this sword." Hamilton,
+who was striding vigorously in the direction of the fort, turned about
+as the priest hastened to him.
+
+"Give me the scabbard of this rapier; I want it. Take it off."
+
+The command was not gently voiced. A hoarse, half-whisper winged every
+word with an imperious threat.
+
+Hamilton obeyed. His hands were not firm; his fingers fumbled
+nervously; but he hurried, and Father Beret soon had the rapier
+sheathed and secured at his belt beside its mate.
+
+A good and true priest is a burden-bearer. His motto is: Alter alterius
+onera portate; bear ye one another's burdens. His soul is enriched with
+the cast-off sorrows of those whom he relieves. Father Beret scarcely
+felt the weight of Alice's body when he lifted it from the ground, so
+heavy was the pressure of his grief. All that her death meant, not only
+to him, but to every person who knew her, came into his heart as the
+place of refuge consecrated for the indwelling of pain. He lifted her
+and bore her as far toward Roussillon place as he could; but his
+strength fell short just in front of the little Bourcier cottage, and
+half dead he staggered across the veranda to the door, where he sank
+exhausted.
+
+After a breathing spell he knocked. The household, fast asleep, did not
+hear; but he persisted until the door was opened to him and his burden.
+
+Captain Farnsworth unclosed his bloodshot eyes, at about eight o'clock
+in the morning, quite confused as to his place and surroundings. He
+looked about drowsily with a sheepish half-knowledge of having been
+very drunk. A purring in his head and a dull ache reminded him of an
+abused stomach. He yawned and stretched himself, then sat up, running a
+hand through his tousled hair. Father Beret was on his knees before the
+cross, still as a statue, his clasped hands extended upward.
+
+Farnsworth's face lighted with recognition, and he smiled rather
+bitterly. He recalled everything and felt ashamed, humiliated,
+self-debased. He had outraged even a priest's hospitality with his
+brutish appetite, and he hated himself for it. Disgust nauseated his
+soul apace with the physical sinking and squirming that grew upon him.
+
+"I'm a shabby, worthless dog!" he muttered, with petulant accent; "why
+don't you kick me out, Father?"
+
+The priest turned a collapsed and bloodless gray face upon him, smiled
+in a tired, perfunctory way, crossed himself absently and said:
+
+"You have rested well, my son. Hard as the bed is, you have done it a
+compliment in the way of sleeping. You young soldiers understand how to
+get the most out of things."
+
+"You are too generous, Father, and I can't appreciate it. I know what I
+deserve, and you know it, too. Tell me what a brute and fool I am; it
+will do me good. Punch me a solid jolt in the ribs, like the one you
+gave me not long ago."
+
+"Qui sine peccato est, primus lapidem mittat" said the priest. "Let him
+who is without sin cast the first stone."
+
+He had gone to the hearth and was taking from the embers an earthen
+saucer, or shallow bowl, in which some fragrant broth simmered and
+steamed.
+
+"A man who has slept as long as you have, my son, usually has a
+somewhat delicate appetite. Now, here is a soup, not especially
+satisfying to the taste of a gourmet like yourself, but possessing the
+soothing quality that is good for one just aroused from an unusual nap.
+I offer it, my son, propter stomachum tuum, et frequentes tuas
+infirmitates (on account of thy stomach, and thine often infirmities).
+This soup will go to the right spot."
+
+While speaking he brought the hot bowl to Farnsworth and set it on the
+bedcover before him, then fetched a big horn spoon.
+
+The fragrance of pungent roots and herbs, blent with a savory waft of
+buffalo meat, greeted the Captain's sense, and the anticipation itself
+cheered his aching throat. It made him feel greedy and in a hurry. The
+first spoonful, a trifle bitter, was not so pleasant at the beginning,
+but a moment after he swallowed it a hot prickling set in and seemed to
+dart through him from extremity to extremity.
+
+Slowly, as he ate, the taste grew more agreeable, and all the effects
+of his debauch disappeared. It was like magic; his blood warmed and
+glowed, as if touched with mysterious fire.
+
+"What is this in this soup, Father Beret, that makes it so searching
+and refreshing?" he demanded, when the bowl was empty.
+
+Father Beret shook his head and smiled drolly.
+
+"That I cannot divulge, my son, owing to a promise I had to make to the
+aged Indian who gave me the secret. It is the elixir of the Miamis.
+Only their consecrated medicine men hold the recipe. The stimulation is
+but temporary."
+
+Just then someone knocked on the door. Father Beret opened it to one of
+Hamilton's aides.
+
+"Your pardon, Father, but hearing Captain Farnsworth's voice I made
+bold to knock."
+
+"What is it, Bobby?" Farnsworth called out.
+
+"Nothing, only the Governor has been having you looked for in every
+nook and corner of the fort and town. You'd better report at once, or
+hell be having us drag the river for your body."
+
+"All right, Lieutenant, go back and keep mum, that's a dear boy, and
+I'll shuffle into Colonel Hamilton's august presence before many
+minutes."
+
+The aide laughed and went his way whistling a merry tune.
+
+"Now I am sure to get what I deserve, with usury at forty per cent in
+advance," said Farnsworth dryly, shrugging his shoulders with
+undissembled dread of Hamilton's wrath. But the anticipation was not
+realized. The Governor received Farnsworth stiffly enough, yet in a way
+that suggested a suppressed desire to avoid explanations on the
+Captain's part and a reprimand on his own. In fact, Hamilton was hoping
+that something would turn up to shield him from the effect of his
+terrible midnight adventure, which seemed the darker the more he
+thought of it. He had a slow, numb conscience, lying deep where it was
+hard to reach, and when a qualm somehow entered it he endured in secret
+what most men would have cast off or confessed. He was haunted, if not
+with remorse, at least by a dread of something most disagreeable in
+connection with what he had done. Alice's white face had impressed
+itself indelibly on his memory, so that it met his inner vision at
+every turn. He was afraid to converse with Farnsworth lest she should
+come up for discussion; consequently their interview was curt and
+formal.
+
+It was soon discovered that Alice had escaped from the stockade, and
+some show of search was made for her by Hamilton's order, but
+Farnsworth looked to it that the order was not carried out. He thought
+he saw at once that his chief knew where she was. The mystery perplexed
+and pained the young man, and caused him to fear all sorts of evil; but
+there was a chance that Alice had found a safe retreat and he knew that
+nothing but ill could befall her if she were discovered and brought
+back to the fort. Therefore his search for her became his own secret
+and for his own heart's ease. And doubtless he would have found her;
+for even handicapped and distorted love like his is lynx-eyed and sure
+on the track of its object; but a great event intervened and swept away
+his opportunity.
+
+Hamilton's uneasiness, which was that of a strong, misguided nature
+trying to justify itself amid a confusion of unmanageable doubts and
+misgivings, now vented itself in a resumption of the repairs he had
+been making at certain points in the fort. These he completed just in
+time for the coming of Clark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE ATTACK
+
+
+It has already been mentioned that Indians, arriving singly or in
+squads, to report at Hamilton's headquarters, were in the habit of
+firing their guns before entering the town or the fort, not only as a
+signal of their approach, but in order to rid their weapons of their
+charges preliminary to cleaning them before setting out upon another
+scalp-hunting expedition. A shot, therefore, or even a volley, heard on
+the outskirts of the village, was not a noticeable incident in the
+daily and nightly experience of the garrison. Still, for some reason,
+Governor Hamilton started violently when, just after nightfall, five or
+six rifles cracked sharply a short distance from the stockade.
+
+He and Helm with two other officers were in the midst of a game of
+cards, while a kettle, swinging on a crane in the ample fire-place,
+sang a shrill promise of hot apple-jack toddy.
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed Farnsworth, who, although not in the game, was
+amusing himself with looking on; "you jump like a fine lady! I almost
+fancied I heard a bullet hit you."
+
+"You may all jump while you can," remarked Helm. "That's Clark, and
+your time's short--He'll have this fort tumbling on your heads before
+daylight of to-morrow morning comes."
+
+As he spoke he arose from his seat at the card table and went to look
+after the toddy, which, as an expert, he had under supervision.
+
+Hamilton frowned. The mention of Clark was disturbing. Ever since the
+strange disappearance of Lieutenant Barlow he had nursed the fear that
+possibly Clark's scouts had captured him and that the American forces
+might be much nearer than Kaskaskia. Besides, his nerves were unruly,
+as they had been ever since the encounter with Father Beret; and his
+vision persisted in turning back upon the accusing cold face of Alice,
+lying in the moonlight. One little detail of that scene almost maddened
+him at times; it was a sheeny, crinkled wisp of warm looking hair
+looped across the cheek in which he had often seen a saucy dimple dance
+when Alice spoke or smiled. He was bad enough, but not wholly bad, and
+the thought of having darkened those merry eyes and stilled those sweet
+dimples tore through him with a cold, rasping pang.
+
+"Just as soon as this toddy is properly mixed and tempered," said Helm,
+with a magnetic jocosity beaming from his genial face, "I'm going to
+propose a toast to the banner of Alice Roussillon, which a whole
+garrison of British braves has been unable to take!"
+
+"If you do I'll blow a hole through you as big as the south door of
+hell," said Hamilton, in a voice fairly shaken to a husky quaver with
+rage. "You may do a great many insulting things; but not that."
+
+Helm was in a half stooping attitude with a ladle in one hand, a cup in
+the other. He had met Hamilton's glowering look with a peculiarly
+innocent smile, as if to say: "What in the world is the matter now? I
+never felt in a better humor in all my life. Can't you take a joke, I
+wonder?" He did not speak, however, for a rattling volley of musket and
+rifle shots hit the top of the clay-daubed chimney, sending down into
+the toddy a shower of soot and dirt.
+
+In a wink every man was on his feet and staring.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Helm, with an impressive oath, "that is Clark's
+soldiers, and they will take your fort; but they ought not to have
+spoiled this apple toddy!"
+
+"Oh, the devil!" said Hamilton, forcibly resuming a calm countenance,
+"it is only a squad of drunken Indians coming in. We'll forego
+excitement; there's no battle on hand, gentlemen."
+
+"I'm glad you think so, Governor Hamilton," Helm responded, "but I
+should imagine that I ought to know the crack of a Kentucky rifle. I've
+heard one occasionally in my life. Besides, I got a whiff of freedom
+just now."
+
+"Captain Helm is right," observed Farnsworth. "That is an attack."
+
+Another volley, this time nearer and more concentrated, convinced
+Hamilton that he was, indeed, at the opening of a fight. Even while he
+was giving some hurried orders to his officers, a man was wounded at
+one of the port-holes. Then came a series of yells, answered by a
+ripple of sympathetic French shouting that ran throughout the town. The
+patrol guards came straggling in, breathless with excitement. They
+swore to having seen a thousand men marching across the water-covered
+meadows.
+
+Hamilton was brave. The approach of danger stirred him like a
+trumpet-strain. His fighting blood rose to full tide, and he gave his
+orders with the steadiness and commanding force of a born soldier. The
+officers hastened to their respective positions. On all sides sounds
+indicative of rapid preparations for the fight mingled into a confused
+strain of military energy. Men marched to their places; cannon were
+wheeled into position, and soon enough the firing began in good earnest.
+
+Late in the afternoon a rumor of Clark's approach had gone abroad
+through the village; but not a French lip breathed it to a friend of
+the British. The creoles were loyal to the cause of freedom; moreover,
+they cordially hated Hamilton, and their hearts beat high at the
+prospect of a change in masters at the fort. Every cabin had its hidden
+gun and supply of ammunition, despite the order to disarm issued by
+Hamilton. There was a hustling to bring these forth, which was
+accompanied with a guarded yet irrepressible chattering, delightfully
+French and infinitely volatile.
+
+"Tiens! je vais frotter mon fusil. J'ai vu un singe!" said Jaques
+Bourcier to his daughter, the pretty Adrienne, who was coming out of
+the room in which Alice lay.
+
+"I saw a monkey just now; I must rub up my gun!" He could not be
+solemn; not he. The thought of an opportunity to get even with Hamilton
+was like wine in his blood.
+
+If you had seen those hardy and sinewy Frenchmen gliding in the dusk of
+evening from cottage to cottage, passing the word that the Americans
+had arrived, saying airy things and pinching one another as they met
+and hurried on, you would have thought something very amusing and
+wholly jocund was in preparation for the people of Vincennes.
+
+There was a current belief in the town that Gaspard Roussillon never
+missed a good thing and always somehow got the lion's share. He went
+out with the ebb to return on the flood. Nobody was surprised,
+therefore, when he suddenly appeared in the midst of his friends, armed
+to the teeth and emotionally warlike to suit the occasion. Of course he
+took charge of everybody and everything. You could have heard him
+whisper a bowshot away.
+
+"Taisons!" he hissed, whenever he met an acquaintance. "We will
+surprise the fort and scalp the whole garrison. Aux armes! les
+Americains viennent d'arriver!"
+
+At his own house he knocked and called in vain. He shook the door
+violently; for he was thinking of the stores under the floor, of the
+grimy bottles, of the fragrant Bordeaux--ah, his throat, how it
+throbbed! But where was Madame Roussillon? Where was Alice? "Jean!
+Jean!" he cried, forgetting all precaution, "come here, you scamp, and
+let me in this minute!"
+
+A profoundly impressive silence gave him to understand that his home
+was deserted.
+
+"Chiff! frightened and gone to stay with Madame Godere, I suppose--and
+I so thirsty! Bah! hum, hum, apres le vin la bataille, ziff!"
+
+He kicked in the door and groped his way to the liquors. While he
+hastily swigged and smacked he heard the firing begin with a crackling,
+desultory volley. He laughed jovially, there in the dark, between
+draughts and deep sighs of enjoyment.
+
+"Et moi aussi," he murmured, like the vast murmur of the sea, "I want
+to be in that dance! Pardonnez, messieurs. Moi, je veux danser, s'il
+vous plait."
+
+And when he had filled himself he plunged out and rushed away, wrought
+up to the extreme fighting pitch of temper. Diable! if he could but
+come across that Lieutenant Barlow, how he would smash him and mangle
+him! In magnifying his prowess with the lens of imagination he swelled
+and puffed as he lumbered along.
+
+The firing sounded as if it were between the fort and the river; but
+presently when one of Hamilton's cannon spoke, M. Roussillon saw the
+yellow spike of flame from its muzzle leap directly toward the church,
+and he thought it best to make a wide detour to avoid going between the
+firing lines. Once or twice he heard the whine of a stray bullet high
+overhead. Before he had gone very far he met a man hurrying toward the
+fort. It was Captain Francis Maisonville, one of Hamilton's chief
+scouts, who had been out on a reconnoissance and, cut off from his
+party by some of Clark's forces, was trying to make his way to the main
+gate of the stockade.
+
+M. Roussillon knew Maisonville as a somewhat desperate character, a
+leader of Indian forays and a trader in human scalps. Surely the fellow
+was legitimate prey.
+
+"Ziff! diable de gredin!" he snarled, and leaping upon him choked him
+to the ground, "Je vais vous scalper immediatement!"
+
+Clark's plan of approach showed masterly strategy. Lieutenant Bailey,
+with fourteen regulars, made a show of attack on the east, while Major
+Bowman led a company through the town, on a line near where Main street
+in Vincennes is now located, to a point north of the stockade.
+Charleville, a brave creole, who was at the head of some daring
+fellows, by a brilliant dash got position under cover of a natural
+terrace at the edge of the prairie, opposite the fort's southwestern
+angle. Lieutenant Beverley, in whom the commander placed highest
+confidence, was sent to look for a supply of ammunition, and to gather
+up all the Frenchmen in the town who wished to join in the attack.
+Oncle Jazon and ten other available men went with him.
+
+They all made a great noise when they felt that the place was
+completely invested. Nor can we deny, much as we would like to, the
+strong desire for vengeance which raised those shouting voices and
+nerved those steady hearts to do or die in an undertaking which
+certainly had a desperate look. Patriotism of the purest strain those
+men had, and that alone would have borne them up; but the recollection
+of smouldering cabin homes in Kentucky, of women and children murdered
+and scalped, of men brave and true burned at the stake, and of all the
+indescribable outrages of Indian warfare incited and rewarded by the
+commander of the fort yonder, added to patriotism the terrible urge of
+that dark passion which clamors for blood to quench the fire of wrath.
+Not a few of those wet, half-frozen, emaciated soldiers of freedom had
+experienced the soul rending shock of returning from a day's hunting in
+the forest to find home in ashes and loved ones brutally murdered and
+scalped, or dragged away to unspeakable outrage under circumstances too
+harrowing for description, the bare thought of which turns our blood
+cold, even at this distance. Now the opportunity had arrived for a
+stroke of retaliation. The thought was tremendously stimulating.
+
+Beverley, with the aid of Oncle Jazon, was able to lead his little
+company as far as the church before the enemy saw him. Here a volley
+from the nearest angle of the stockade had to be answered, and pretty
+soon a cannon began to play upon the position.
+
+"We kin do better some'rs else," was Oncle Jazon's laconic remark flung
+back over his shoulder, as he moved briskly away from the spot just
+swept by a six-pounder. "Come this yer way, Lieutenant. I hyer some o'
+the fellers a talkin' loud jes' beyant Legrace's place. They ain't no
+sort o' sense a tryin' to hit anything a shootin' in the dark nohow."
+
+When they reached the thick of the town there was a strange stir in the
+dusky streets. Men were slipping from house to house, arming themselves
+and joining their neighbors. Clark had sent an order earlier in the
+evening forbidding any street demonstration by the inhabitants; but he
+might as well have ordered the wind not to blow or the river to stand
+still. Oncle Jazon knew every man whose outlines he could see or whose
+voice he heard. He called each one by name:
+
+"Here, Roger, fall in!--Come Louis, Alphonse, Victor, Octave--venez
+ici, here's the American army, come with me!" His rapid French phrases
+leaped forth as if shot from a pistol, and his shrill voice, familiar
+to every ear in Vincennes, drew the creole militiamen to him, and soon
+Beverley's company had doubled its numbers, while at the same time its
+enthusiasm and ability to make a noise had increased in a far greater
+proportion. In accordance with an order from Clark they now took
+position near the northeast corner of the stockade and began firing,
+although in the darkness there was but little opportunity for
+marksmanship.
+
+Oncle Jazon had found citizens Legrace and Bosseron, and through them
+Clark's men were supplied with ammunition, of which they stood greatly
+in need, their powder having got wet during their long, watery march.
+By nine o'clock the fort was completely surrounded, and from every
+direction the riflemen and musketeers were pouring in volley after
+volley. Beverley with his men took the cover of a fence and some houses
+sixty yards from the stockade. Here to their surprise they found
+themselves below the line of Hamilton's cannon, which, being planted on
+the second floor of the fort, could not be sufficiently depressed to
+bear upon them. A well directed musket fire, however, fell from the
+loopholes of the blockhouses, the bullets rattling merrily against the
+cover behind which the attacking forces lay.
+
+Beverley was thinking of Alice during every moment of all this stir and
+tumult He feared that she might still be a prisoner in the fort exposed
+to the very bullets that his men were discharging at every crack and
+cranny of those loosely constructed buildings. Should he ever see her
+again? Would she care for him? What would be the end of all this
+terrible suspense? Those remote forebodings of evils, formless,
+shadowy, ineffable, which have harried the lover's heart since time
+began, crowded all pleasant anticipations out of his mind.
+
+Clark, in passing hurriedly from company to company around the line,
+stopped for a little while when he found Beverley.
+
+"Have you plenty of ammunition?" was his first inquiry.
+
+"A mighty sight more'n we kin see to shoot with," spoke up Oncle Jazon.
+"It's a right smart o' dad burn foolishness to be wastin' it on
+nothin'; seems like to me 'at we'd better set the dasted fort afire an'
+smoke the skunks out!"
+
+"Speak when you are spoken to, my man," said the Colonel a trifle
+hotly, and trying by a sharp scrutiny to make him out in the gloom
+where he crouched.
+
+"Ventrebleu! I'm not askin' YOU, Colonel Clark, nor no other man, when
+I shill speak. I talks whenever I gits ready, an' I shoots jes' the
+same way. So ye'd better go on 'bout yer business like a white man!
+Close up yer own whopper jawed mouth, ef ye want anything shet up!"
+
+"Oho! is that you, Jazon? You're so little I didn't know you!
+Certainly, talk your whole damned under jaw off, for all I care," Clark
+replied, assuming a jocose tone. Then turning again to Beverley: "Keep
+up the firing and the noise; the fort will be ours in the morning."
+
+"What's the use of waiting till morning?" Beverley demanded with
+impatience. "We can tear that stockade to pieces with our hands in half
+an hour."
+
+"I don't think so, Lieutenant. It is better to play for the sure thing.
+Keep up the racket, and be ready for 'em if they rush out. We must not
+fail to capture the hair-buyer General."
+
+He passed on, with something cheerful to say whenever he found a squad
+of his devoted men. He knew how to humor and manage those independent
+and undisciplined yet heroically brave fellows. What to see and hear,
+what to turn aside as a joke, what to insist upon with inflexible
+mastery, he knew by the fine instantaneous sense of genius. There were
+many men of Oncle Jazon's cast, true as steel, but refractory as flint,
+who could not be dominated by any person, no matter of what stamp or
+office. To them an order was an insult; but a suggestion pleased and
+captured them. Strange as it may seem, theirs was the conquering spirit
+of America--the spirit which has survived every turn of progress and
+built up the great body of our independence.
+
+Beverley submitted to Clark's plan with what patience he could, and all
+night long fired shot for shot with the best riflemen in his squad. It
+was a fatiguing performance, with apparently little result beyond
+forcing the garrison now and again to close the embrasures, thus
+periodically silencing the cannon. Toward the close of the night a
+relaxation showed itself in the shouting and firing all round the line.
+Beverley's men, especially the creoles, held out bravely in the matter
+of noise; but even they flagged at length, their volatility simmering
+down to desultory bubbling and half sleepy chattering and chaffing.
+
+Beverley leaned upon a rude fence, and for a time neglected to reload
+his hot rifle. Of course he was thinking of Alice,--he really could not
+think in any other direction; but it gave him a shock and a start when
+he presently heard her name mentioned by a little Frenchman near him on
+the left.
+
+"There'll never be another such a girl in Post Vincennes as Alice
+Roussillon," the fellow said in the soft creole patois, "and to think
+of her being shot like a dog!"
+
+"And by a man who calls himself a Governor, too!" said another. "Ah, as
+for myself, I'm in favor of burning him alive when we capture him.
+That's me!"
+
+"Et moi aussi," chimed in a third voice. "That poor girl must be
+avenged. The man who shot her must die. Holy Virgin, but if Gaspard
+Roussillon were only here!"
+
+"But he is here; I saw him just after dark. He was in great fighting
+temper, that terrible man. Ouf! but I should not like to be Colonel
+Hamilton and fall in the way of that Gaspard Roussillon!"
+
+"Morbleu! I should say not. You may leave me out of a chance like that!
+I shouldn't mind seeing Gaspard handle the Governor, though. Ah, that
+would be too good! He'd pay him up for shooting Mademoiselle Alice."
+
+Beverley could scarcely hold himself erect by the fence; the smoky,
+foggy landscape swam round him heavy and strange. He uttered a groan,
+which brought Oncle Jazon to his side in a hurry.
+
+"Qu' avez-vous? What's the matter?" the old man demanded with quick
+sympathy. "Hev they hit ye? Lieutenant, air ye hurt much?"
+
+Beverley did not hear the old man's words, did not feel his kindly
+touch.
+
+"Alice! Alice!" he murmured, "dead, dead!"
+
+"Ya-as," drawled Oncle Jazon, "I hearn about it soon as I got inter
+town. It's a sorry thing, a mighty sorry thing. But mebby I won't do a
+little somepin' to that--"
+
+Beverley straightened himself and lifted his gun, forgetting that he
+had not reloaded it since firing last. He leveled it at the fort and
+touched the trigger. Simultaneously with his movement an embrasure
+opened and a cannon flashed, its roar flanked on either side by a
+crackling of British muskets. Some bullets struck the fence and flung
+splinters into Oncle Jazon's face. A cannon ball knocked a ridge pole
+from the roof of a house hard by, and sent it whirling through the air.
+
+"Ventrebleu!--et apres? What the devil next? Better knock a feller's
+eyes out!" the old man cried. "I ain't a doin' nothin' to ye!"
+
+He capered around rubbing his leathery face after the manner of a
+scalded monkey. Beverley was struck in the breast by a flattened and
+spent ball that glanced from a fence-picket. The shock caused him to
+stagger and drop his gun; but he quickly picked it up and turned to his
+companion.
+
+"Are you hurt, Oncle Jazon?" he inquired. "Are you hurt?"
+
+"Not a bit--jes' skeert mos' into a duck fit. Thought a cannon ball had
+knocked my whole dang face down my throat! Nothin' but a handful o'
+splinters in my poorty count'nance, makin' my head feel like a
+porc'-pine. But I sort o' thought I heard somepin' give you a diff."
+
+"Something did hit me," said Beverley, laying a hand on his breast,
+"but I don't think it was a bullet. They seem to be getting our range
+at last. Tell the men to keep well under cover. They must not expose
+themselves until we are ready to charge."
+
+The shock had brought him back to his duty as a leader of his little
+company, and with the funeral bell of all his life's happiness tolling
+in his agonized heart he turned afresh to directing the fire upon the
+block-house.
+
+About this time a runner came from Clark with an order to cease firing
+and let a returning party of British scouts under Captain Lamothe
+re-enter the fort unharmed. A strange order it seemed to both officers
+and men; but it was implicitly obeyed. Clark's genius here made another
+fine strategic flash. He knew that unless he let the scouts go back
+into the stockade they would escape by running away, and might possibly
+organize an army of Indians with which to succor Hamilton. But if they
+were permitted to go inside they could be captured with the rest of the
+garrison; hence his order.
+
+A few minutes passed in dead silence; then Captain Lamothe and his
+party marched close by where Beverley's squad was lying concealed. It
+was a difficult task to restrain the creoles, for some of them hated
+Lamothe. Oncle Jazon squirmed like a snake while they filed past all
+unaware that an enemy lurked so near. When they reached the fort,
+ladders were put down for them and they began to clamber over the wall,
+crowding and pushing one another in wild haste. Oncle Jazon could hold
+in no longer.
+
+"Ya! ya! ya!" he yelled. "Look out! the ladder is a fallin' wi' ye!"
+
+Then all the lurking crowd shouted as one man, and, sure enough, down
+came a ladder--men and all in a crashing heap.
+
+"Silence! silence!" Beverley commanded; but he could not check the wild
+jeering and laughing, while the bruised and frightened scouts hastily
+erected their ladder again, fairly tumbling over one another in their
+haste to ascend, and so cleared the wall, falling into the stockade to
+join the garrison.
+
+"Ventrebleu!" shrieked Oncle Jazon. "They've gone to bed; but we'll
+wake 'em up at the crack o' day an' give 'em a breakfas' o' hot lead!"
+
+Now the fighting was resumed with redoubled spirit and noise, and when
+morning came, affording sufficient light to bring out the "bead sights"
+on the Kentucky rifles, the matchless marksmen in Clark's band forced
+the British to close the embrasures and entirely cease trying to use
+their cannon; but the fight with small arms went merrily on until the
+middle of the forenoon.
+
+Meantime Gaspard Roussillon had tied Francis Maisonville's hands fast
+and hard with the strap of his bullet-pouch.
+
+"Now, I'll scalp you," he said in a rumbling tone, terrible to hear.
+And with his words out came his hunting knife from its sheath.
+
+"O have mercy, my dear Monsieur Roussillon!" cried the panting captive;
+"have mercy!"
+
+"Mercy! yes, like your Colonel's, that's what you'll get. You stand by
+that forban, that scelerat, that bandit, and help him. Oh, yes, you'll
+get mercy! Yes, the same mercy that he showed to my poor little Alice!
+Your scalp, Monsieur, if you please! A small matter; it won't hurt
+much!"
+
+"But, for the sake of old friendship, Gaspard, for the sake--"
+
+"Ziff! poor little Alice!"
+
+"But I swear to you that I--"
+
+"Tout de meme, Monsieur, je vais vous scalper maintenant."
+
+In fact he had taken off a part of Maisonville's scalp, when a party of
+soldiers, among whom was Maisonville's brother, a brave fellow and
+loyal to the American cause, were attracted by his cries and came to
+his rescue.
+
+M. Roussillon struggled savagely, insisting upon completing his cruel
+performance; but he was at last overpowered, partly by brute force and
+partly by the pleading of Maisonville's brother, and made to desist.
+The big man wept with rage when he saw the bleeding prisoner protected.
+"Eh bien! I'll keep what I've got," he roared, "and I'll take the rest
+of it next time."
+
+He shook the tuft of hair at Maisonville and glared like a mad bull.
+
+Two or three other members of Lamothe's band were captured about the
+same time by some of the French militiamen; and Clark, when on his
+round cheering and directing his forces, discovered that these
+prisoners were being used as shields. Some young creoles, gay with
+drink and the stimulating effect of fight, had bound the poor fellows
+and were firing from behind them! Of course the commander promptly put
+an end to this cruelty; but they considered it exquisite fun while it
+lasted. It was in broad daylight, and they knew that the English in the
+fort could see what they were doing.
+
+"It's shameful to treat prisoners in this way," said Clark. "I will not
+permit it. Shoot the next man that offers to do such a thing!"
+
+One of the creole youths, a handsome, swarthy Adonis in buckskin,
+tossed his shapely head with a debonair smile and said:
+
+"To be sure, mon Colonel! but what have they been doing to us? We have
+amused them all winter; it's but fair that they should give us a little
+fun now."
+
+Clark shrugged his broad shoulders and passed on. He understood
+perfectly what the people of Vincennes had suffered under Hamilton's
+brutal administration.
+
+At nine o'clock an order was passed to cease firing, and a flag of
+truce was seen going from Clark's headquarters to the fort. It was a
+peremptory demand for unconditional surrender. Hamilton refused, and
+fighting was fiercely resumed from behind rude breastworks meantime
+erected. Every loop-hole and opening of whatever sort was the focus
+into which the unerring backwoods rifles sent their deadly bullets. Men
+began to fall in the fort, and every moment Hamilton expected an
+assault in force on all sides of the stockade. This, if successful,
+would mean inevitable massacre. Clark had warned him of the terrible
+consequences of holding out until the worst should come. "For," said he
+in his note to the Governor, "if I am obliged to storm, you may depend
+upon such treatment as is justly due to a murderer."
+
+Historians have wondered why Hamilton became so excited and acted so
+strangely after receiving the note. The phrase, "justly due to a
+murderer," is the key to the mystery. When he read it his heart sank
+and a terrible fear seized him. "Justly due to a murderer!" ah, that
+calm, white, beautiful girlish face, dead in the moonlight, with the
+wisp of shining hair across it! "Such treatment as is justly due to a
+murderer!" Cold drops of sweat broke out on his forehead and a shiver
+went through his body.
+
+During the truce Clark's weary yet still enthusiastic besiegers enjoyed
+a good breakfast prepared for them by the loyal dames of Vincennes.
+Little Adrienne Bourcier was one of the handmaidens of the occasion.
+She brought to Beverley's squad a basket, almost as large as herself,
+heaped high with roasted duck and warm wheaten bread, while another
+girl bore two huge jugs of coffee, fragrant and steaming hot. The men
+cheered them lustily and complimented them without reserve, so that
+before their service was over their faces were glowing with delight.
+
+And yet Adrienne's heart was uneasy, and full of longing to hear
+something of Rene de Ronville. Surely some one of her friends must know
+something about him. Ah, there was Oncle Jazon! Doubtless he could tell
+her all that she wanted to know. She lingered, after the food was
+distributed, and shyly inquired.
+
+"Hain't seed the scamp," said Oncle Jazon, only he used the patois most
+familiar to the girl's ear. "Killed an' scelped long ago, I reckon."
+
+His mouth was so full that he spoke mumblingly and with utmost
+difficulty. Nor did he glance at Adrienne, whose face took on as great
+pallor as her brown complexion could show.
+
+Beverley ate but little of the food. He sat apart on a piece of timber
+that projected from the rough breastwork and gave himself over to
+infinite misery of spirit, which was trebled when he took Alice's
+locket from his bosom, only to discover that the bullet which struck
+him had almost entirely destroyed the face of the miniature.
+
+He gripped the dinted and twisted case and gazed at it with the stare
+of a blind man. His heart almost ceased to beat and his breath had the
+rustling sound we hear when a strong man dies of a sudden wound.
+Somehow the defacement of the portrait was taken by his soul as the
+final touch of fate, signifying that Alice was forever and completely
+obliterated from his life. He felt a blur pass over his mind. He tried
+in vain to recall the face and form so dear to him; he tried to imagine
+her voice; but the whole universe was a vast hollow silence. For a long
+while he was cold, staring, rigid; then the inevitable collapse came,
+and he wept as only a strong man can who is hurt to death, yet cannot
+die.
+
+Adrienne approached him, thinking to speak to him about Rene; but he
+did not notice her, and she went her way, leaving beside him a liberal
+supply of food.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+ALICE'S FLAG
+
+
+Governor Hamilton received the note sent him by Colonel Clark and
+replied to it with curt dignity; but his heart was quaking. As a
+soldier he was true to the military tradition, and nothing could have
+induced him to surrender his command with dishonor.
+
+"Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton," he wrote to Clark, "begs leave to
+acquaint Colonel Clark that he and his garrison are not disposed to be
+awed into any action unworthy of British subjects."
+
+"Very brave words," said Helm, when Hamilton read the note to him, "but
+you'll sing a milder tune before many minutes, or you and your whole
+garrison will perish in a bloody heap. Listen to those wild yells!
+Clark has enough men to eat you all up for breakfast. You'd better be
+reasonable and prudent. It's not bravery to court massacre."
+
+Hamilton turned away without a word and sent the message; but Helm saw
+that he was excited, and could be still further wrought up.
+
+"You are playing into the hands of your bitterest enemies, the
+frog-eaters," he went on. "These creoles, over whom you've held a hot
+poker all winter, are crazy to be turned loose upon you; and you know
+that they've got good cause to feel like giving you the extreme
+penalty. They'll give it to you without a flinch if they get the
+chance. You've done enough."
+
+Hamilton whirled about and glared ferociously.
+
+"Helm, what do you mean?" he demanded in a voice as hollow as it was
+full of desperate passion.
+
+The genial Captain laughed, as if he had heard a good joke.
+
+"You won't catch any fish if you swear, and you look blasphemous," he
+said with the lightness of humor characteristic of him at all times.
+"You'd better say a prayer or two. Just reflect a moment upon the awful
+sins you have committed and--"
+
+A crash of coalescing volleys from every direction broke off his
+levity. Clark was sending his response to Hamilton's lofty note. The
+guns of freedom rang out a prophecy of triumph, and the hissing bullets
+clucked sharply as they entered the solid logs of the walls or whisked
+through an aperture and bowled over a man. The British musketeers
+returned the fire as best they could, with a courage and a stubborn
+coolness which Helm openly admired, although he could not hide his
+satisfaction whenever one of them was disabled.
+
+"Lamothe and his men are refusing to obey orders," said Farnsworth a
+little later, hastily approaching Hamilton, his face flushed and a
+gleam of hot anger in his eyes. "They're in a nasty mood; I can do
+nothing with them; they have not fired a shot."
+
+"Mutiny?" Hamilton demanded.
+
+"Not just that. They say they do not wish to fire on their kinsmen and
+friends. They are all French, you know, and they see their cousins,
+brothers, uncles and old acquaintances out there in Clark's rabble. I
+can do nothing with them."
+
+"Shoot the scoundrels, then!"
+
+"It will be a toss up which of us will come out on top if we try that.
+Besides, if we begin a fight inside, the Americans will make short work
+of us."
+
+"Well, what in hell are we to do, then?"
+
+"Oh, fight, that's all," said Farnsworth apathetically turning to a
+small loop-hole and leveling a field glass through it. "We might make a
+rush from the gates and stampede them," he presently added. Then he
+uttered an exclamation of great surprise.
+
+"There's Lieutenant Beverley out there," he exclaimed.
+
+"You're mistaken, you're excited," Hamilton half sneeringly remarked,
+yet not without a shade of uneasiness in his expression. "You forget,
+sir."
+
+"Look for yourself, it's easily settled," and Farnsworth proffered the
+glass. "He's there, to a certainty, sir."
+
+"I saw Beverley an hour ago," said Helm. "I knew all the time that he'd
+be on hand."
+
+It was a white lie. Captain Helm was as much surprised as his captors
+at what he heard; but he could not resist the temptation to be annoying.
+
+Hamilton looked as Farnsworth directed, and sure enough, there was the
+young Virginian Lieutenant, standing on a barricade, his hat off,
+cheering his men with a superb show of zeal. Not a hair of his head was
+missing, so far as the glass could be relied upon to show.
+
+Oncle Jazon's quick old eyes saw the gleam of the telescope tube in the
+loop-hole.
+
+"I never could shoot much," he muttered, and then a little bullet sped
+with absolute accuracy from his disreputable looking rifle and
+shattered the object-lens, just as Hamilton moved to withdraw the
+glass, uttering an ejaculation of intense excitement.
+
+"Such devils of marksmen!" said he, and his face was haggard. "That
+infernal Indian lied."
+
+"I could have told you all the time that the scalp Long-Hair brought to
+you was not Beverley's," said Helm indifferently. "I recognized
+Lieutenant Barlow's hair as soon as I saw it."
+
+This was another piece of off-hand romance. Helm did not dream that he
+was accidentally sketching a horrible truth.
+
+"Barlow's!" exclaimed Farnsworth.
+
+"Yes, Barlow's, no mistake--"
+
+Two more men reeled from a port-hole, the blood spinning far out of
+their wounds. Indeed, through every aperture in the walls the bullets
+were now humming like mad hornets.
+
+"Close that port-hole!" stormed Hamilton; then turning to Farnsworth he
+added: "We cannot endure this long. Shut up every place large enough
+for a bullet to get through. Go all around, give strict orders to all.
+See that the men do not foolishly expose themselves. Those ruffians out
+there have located every crack."
+
+His glimpse of Beverley and the sinister remark of Helm had completely
+unmanned him before his men fell. Now it rushed upon him that if he
+would escape the wrath of the maddened creoles and the vengeance of
+Alice's lover, he must quickly throw himself upon the mercy of Clark.
+It was his only hope. He chafed inwardly, but bore himself with stern
+coolness. He presently sought Farnsworth, pulled him aside and
+suggested that something must be done to prevent an assault and a
+massacre. The sounds outside seemed to forebode a gathering for a
+desperate rush, and in his heart he felt all the terrors of awful
+anticipation.
+
+"We are completely at their mercy, that is plain," he said, shrugging
+his shoulders and gazing at the wounded men writhing in their agony.
+"What do you suggest?"
+
+Captain Farnsworth was a shrewd officer. He recollected that Philip
+Dejean, justice of Detroit, was on his way down the Wabash from that
+post, and probably near at hand, with a flotilla of men and supplies.
+Why not ask for a few days of truce? It could do no harm, and if agreed
+to, might be their salvation. Hamilton jumped at the thought, and
+forthwith drew up a note which he sent out with a white flag. Never
+before in all his military career had he been so comforted by a sudden
+cessation of fighting. His soul would grovel in spite of him. Alice's
+cold face now had Beverley's beside it in his field of inner vision--a
+double assurance of impending doom, it seemed to him.
+
+There was short delay in the arrival of Colonel Clark's reply, hastily
+scrawled on a bit of soiled paper. The request for a truce was flatly
+refused; but the note closed thus:
+
+"If Mr. Hamilton is Desirous of a Conferance with Col. Clark he will
+meet him at the Church with Captn. Helms."
+
+The spelling was not very good, and there was a redundancy of capital
+letters; yet Hamilton understood it all; and it was very difficult for
+him to conceal his haste to attend the proposed conference. But he was
+afraid to go to the church--the thought chilled him. He could not face
+Father Beret, who would probably be there. And what if there should be
+evidences of the funeral?--what if?--he shuddered and tried to break
+away from the vision in his tortured brain.
+
+He sent a proposition to Clark to meet him on the esplanade before the
+main gate of the fort; but Clark declined, insisting upon the church.
+And thither he at last consented to go. It was an immense brace to his
+spirit to have Helm beside him during that walk, which, although but
+eighty yards in extent, seemed to him a matter of leagues. On the way
+he had to pass near the new position taken up by Beverley and his men.
+It was a fine test of nerve, when the Lieutenant's eyes met those of
+the Governor. Neither man permitted the slightest change of countenance
+to betray his feelings. In fact, Beverley's face was as rigid as
+marble; he could not have changed it.
+
+But with Oncle Jazon it was a different affair. He had no dignity to
+preserve, no fine military bearing to sustain, no terrible tug of
+conscience, no paralyzing grip of despair on his heart. When he saw
+Hamilton going by, bearing himself so superbly, it affected the French
+volatility in his nature to such an extent that his tongue could not be
+controlled.
+
+"Va t'en, bete, forban, meurtrier! Skin out f'om here! beast, robber,
+murderer!" he cried, in his keen screech-owl voice. "I'll git thet
+scelp o' your'n afore sundown, see 'f I don't! Ye onery gal-killer an'
+ha'r buyer!"
+
+The blood in Hamilton's veins caught no warmth from these remarks; but
+he held his head high and passed stolidly on, as if he did not hear a
+word. Helm turned the tail of an eye upon Oncle Jazon and gave him a
+droll, quizzical wink of approval. In response the old man with
+grotesque solemnity drew his buckhorn handled knife, licked its blade
+and returned it to its sheath,--a bit of pantomime well understood and
+keenly enjoyed by the onlooking creoles.
+
+"Putois! coquin!" they jeered, "goujat! poltron!"
+
+Beverley heard the taunting racket, but did not realize it, which was
+well enough, for he could not have restrained the bitter effervescence.
+He stood like a statue, gazing fixedly at the now receding figure, the
+lofty, cold-faced man in whom centered his hate of hates. Clark had
+requested him to be present at the conference in the church; but he
+declined, feeling that he could not meet Hamilton and restrain himself.
+Now he regretted his refusal, half wishing that--no, he could not
+assassinate an enemy under a white flag. In his heart he prayed that
+there would be no surrender, that Hamilton would reject every offer. To
+storm the fort and revel in butchering its garrison seemed the only
+desirable thing left for him in life.
+
+Father Beret was, indeed, present at the church, as Hamilton had
+dreaded; and the two duelists gave each other a rapier-like eye-thrust.
+Neither spoke, however, and Clark immediately demanded a settlement of
+the matter in hand. He was brusque and imperious to a degree,
+apparently rather anxious to repel every peaceful advance.
+
+It was a laconic interview, crisp as autumn ice and bitter as
+gallberries. Colonel Clark had no respect whatever for Hamilton, to
+whom he had applied the imperishable adjective "hair-buyer General." On
+the other hand Governor Hamilton, who felt keenly the disgrace of
+having to equalize himself officially and discuss terms of surrender
+with a rough backwoodsman, could not conceal his contempt of Clark.
+
+The five men of history, Hamilton, Helm, Hay, Clark and Bowman, were
+not distinguished diplomats. They went at their work rather after the
+hammer-and-tongs fashion. Clark bluntly demanded unconditional
+surrender. Hamilton refused. They argued the matter. Helm put in his
+oar, trying to soften the situation, as was his custom on all
+occasions, and received from Clark a stinging reprimand, with the
+reminder that he was nothing but a prisoner on parole, and had no voice
+at all in settling the terms of surrender.
+
+"I release him, sir," said Hamilton. "He is no longer a prisoner. I am
+quite willing to have Captain Helm join freely in our conference."
+
+"And I refuse to permit his acceptance of your favor," responded Clark.
+"Captain Helm, you will return with Mr. Hamilton to the fort and remain
+his captive until I free you by force. Meantime hold your tongue."
+
+Father Beret, suave looking and quiet, occupied himself at the little
+altar, apparently altogether indifferent to what was being said; but he
+lost not a word of the talk.
+
+"Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat," he inwardly repeated, smiling
+blandly. "Gaudete in illa die, et exultate!"
+
+Hamilton rose to go; deep lines of worry creased his face; but when the
+party had passed outside, he suddenly turned upon Clark and said:
+
+"Why do you demand impossible terms of me?"
+
+"I will tell you, sir," was the stern answer, in a tone in which there
+was no mercy or compromise. "I would rather have you refuse. I desire
+nothing so much as an excuse to wreak full and bloody vengeance on
+every man in that fort who has engaged in the business of employing
+savages to scalp brave, patriotic men and defenseless women and
+children. The cries of the widows and the fatherless on our frontiers
+require the blood of the Indian partisans at my hands. If you choose to
+risk the massacre of your garrison to save those despicable red-handed
+partisans, have your pleasure. What you have done you know better than
+I do. I have a duty to perform. You may be able to soften its nature. I
+may take it into my head to send for some of our bereaved women to
+witness my terrible work and see that it is well done, if you insist
+upon the worst."
+
+Major Hay, who was Hamilton's Indian agent, now, with some difficulty
+clearing his throat, spoke up.
+
+"Pray, sir," said he, "who is it that you call Indian partisans?"
+
+"Sir," replied Clark, seeing that his words had gone solidly home, "I
+take Major Hay to be one of the principals."
+
+This seemed to strike Hay with deadly force. Clark's report says that
+he was "pale and trembling, scarcely able to stand," and that "Hamilton
+blushed, and, I observed, was much affected at his behavior.
+"Doubtless, if the doughty American commander had known more about the
+Governor's feelings just then, he would have added that an awful fear,
+even greater than the Indian agent's, did more than anything else to
+congest the veins in his face."
+
+The parties separated without reaching an agreement; but the end had
+come. The terror in Hamilton's soul was doubled by a wild scene enacted
+under the walls of his fort; a scene which, having no proper place in
+this story, strong as its historical interest unquestionably is, must
+be but outlined. A party of Indians returning from a scalping
+expedition in Kentucky and along the Ohio, was captured on the
+outskirts of the town by some of Clark's men, who proceeded to kill and
+scalp them within full view of the beleaguered garrison, after which
+their mangled bodies were flung into the river.
+
+If the British commander needed further wine of dread to fill his cup
+withal, it was furnished by ostentatious marshaling of the American
+forces for a general assault. His spirit broke completely, so that it
+looked like a godsend to him when Clark finally offered terms of
+honorable surrender, the consummation of which was to be postponed
+until the following morning. He accepted promptly, appending to the
+articles of capitulation the following reasons for his action: "The
+remoteness from succor; the state and quantity of provisions, etc.;
+unanimity of officers and men in its expediency; the honorable terms
+allowed; and, lastly, the confidence in a generous enemy."
+
+Confidence in a generous enemy! Abject fear of the vengeance just
+wreaked upon his savage emissaries would have been the true statement.
+Beverley read the paper when Clark sent for him; but he could not join
+in the extravagant delight of his fellow officers and their brave men.
+What did all this victory mean to him? Hamilton to be treated as an
+honorable prisoner of war, permitted to strut forth from the feat with
+his sword at his side, his head up--the scalp-buyer, the murderer of
+Alice! What was patriotism to the crushed heart of a lover? Even if his
+vision had been able to pierce the future and realize the splendor of
+Anglo-Saxon civilization which was to follow that little triumph at
+Vincennes, what pleasure could it have afforded him? Alice, Alice, only
+Alice; no other thought had influence, save the recurring surge of
+desire for vengeance upon her murderer.
+
+And yet that night Beverley slept, and so forgot his despair for many
+hours, even dreamed a pleasant dream of home, where his childhood was
+spent, of the stately old house on the breezy hill-top overlooking a
+sunny plantation, with a little river lapsing and shimmering through
+it. His mother's dear arms were around him, her loving breath stirred
+his hair; and his stalwart, gray-headed father sat on the veranda
+comfortably smoking his pipe, while away in the wide fields the negroes
+sang at the plow and the hoe. Sweeter and sweeter grew the scene,
+softer the air, tenderer the blending sounds of the water-murmur,
+leaf-rustle, bird-song, and slave-song, until hand in hand he wandered
+with Alice in greening groves, where the air was trembling with the
+ecstacy of spring.
+
+A young officer awoke him with an order from Clark to go on duty at
+once with Captains Worthington and Williams, who, under Colonel Clark
+himself, were to take possession of the fort. Mechanically he obeyed.
+The sun was far up, shining between clouds of a leaden, watery hue, by
+the time everything was ready for the important ceremony. Beside the
+main gate of the stockade two companies of patriots under Bowman and
+McCarty were drawn up as guards, while the British garrison filed out
+and was taken in charge. This bit of formality ended, Governor
+Hamilton, attended by some of his officers, went back into the fort and
+the gate was closed.
+
+Clark now gave orders that preparations be made for hauling down the
+British flag and hoisting the young banner of liberty in its place,
+when everything should be ready for a salute of thirteen guns from the
+captured battery.
+
+Helm's round face was beaming. Plainly it showed that his happiness was
+supreme. He dared not say anything, however; for Clark was now all
+sternness and formality; it would be dangerous to take any liberties;
+but he could smile and roll his quid of tobacco from cheek to cheek.
+
+Hamilton and Farnsworth, the latter slightly wounded in the left arm,
+which was bandaged, stood together somewhat apart from their fellow
+officers, while preliminary steps for celebrating their defeat and
+capture were in progress. They looked forlorn enough to have excited
+deep sympathy under fairer conditions.
+
+Outside the fort the creoles were beginning a noise of jubilation. The
+rumor of what was going to be done had passed from mouth to mouth,
+until every soul in the town knew and thrilled with expectancy. Men,
+women and children came swarming to see the sight, and to hear at close
+range the crash of the cannon. They shouted, in a scattering way at
+first, then the tumult grew swiftly to a solid rolling tide that seemed
+beyond all comparison with the population of Vincennes. Hamilton heard
+it, and trembled inwardly, afraid lest the mob should prove too strong
+for the guard.
+
+One leonine voice roared distinctly, high above the noise. It was a
+sound familiar to all the creoles,--that bellowing shout of Gaspard
+Roussillon's. He was roaming around the stockade, having been turned
+back by the guard when he tried to pass through the main gate.
+
+"They shut me out!" he bellowed furiously. "I am Gaspard Roussillon,
+and they shut me out, me! Ziff! me voici! je vais entrer immediatement,
+moi!"
+
+He attracted but little attention, however; the people and the soldiery
+were all too excited by the special interest of the occasion, and too
+busy with making a racket of their own, for any individual, even the
+great Roussillon, to gain their eyes or ears. He in turn scarcely heard
+the tumult they made, so self-centered were his burning thoughts and
+feelings. A great occasion in Vincennes and he, Gaspard Roussillon, not
+recognized as one of the large factors in it! Ah, no, never! And he
+strode along the wall of the stockade, turning the corners and heavily
+shambling over the inequalities till he reached the postern. It was not
+fastened, some one having passed through just before him.
+
+"Ziff!" he ejaculated, stepping into the area and shaking himself after
+the manner of a dusty mastiff. "C'est moi! Gaspard Roussillon!" His
+massive under jaw was set like that of a vise, yet it quivered with
+rage, a rage which was more fiery condensation of self-approval than
+anger.
+
+Outside the shouting, singing and huzzahs gathered strength and volume,
+until the sound became a hoarse roar. Clark was uneasy; he had
+overheard much of a threatening character during the siege. The creoles
+were, he knew, justly exasperated, and even his own men had been
+showing a spirit which might easily be fanned into a dangerous flame of
+vengeance. He was very anxious to have the formalities of taking
+possession of the fort over with, so that he could the better control
+his forces. Sending for Beverley he assigned him to the duty of hauling
+down the British flag and running up that of Virginia. It was an honor
+of no doubtful sort, which under different circumstances would have
+made the Lieutenant's heart glow. As it was, he proceeded without any
+sense of pride or pleasure, moving as a mere machine in performing an
+act significant beyond any other done west of the mountains, in the
+great struggle for American independence and the control of American
+territory.
+
+Hamilton stood a little way from the foot of the tall flag-pole, his
+arms folded on his breast, his chin slightly drawn in, his brows
+contracted, gazing steadily at Beverley while he was untying the
+halyard, which had been wound around the pole's base about three feet
+above the ground. The American troops in the fort were disposed so as
+to form three sides of a hollow square, facing inward. Oncle Jazon,
+serving as the ornamental extreme of one line, was conspicuous for his
+outlandish garb and unmilitary bearing. The silence inside the stockade
+offered a strong contrast to the tremendous roar of voices outside.
+Clark made a signal, and at the tap of a drum, Beverley shook the ropes
+loose and began to lower the British colors. Slowly the bright emblem
+of earth's mightiest nation crept down in token of the fact that a
+handful of back-woodsmen had won an empire by a splendid stroke of pure
+heroism. Beverley detached the flag, and saluting, handed it to Colonel
+Clark. Hamilton's breast heaved and his iron jaws tightened their
+pressure until the lines of his cheeks were deep furrows of pain.
+
+Father Beret, who had just been admitted, quietly took a place at one
+side near the wall. There was a fine, warm, benignant smile on his old
+face, yet his powerful shoulders drooped as if weighted down with a
+heavy load. Hamilton was aware when he entered, and instantly the scene
+of their conflict came into his memory with awful vividness, and he saw
+Alice lying outstretched, stark and, cold, the shining strand of hair
+fluttering across her pallid cheek. Her ghost overshadowed him.
+
+Just then there was a bird-like movement, a wing-like rustle, and a
+light figure flitted swiftly across the area. All eyes were turned upon
+it. Hamilton recoiled, as pale as death, half lifting his hands, as if
+to ward off a deadly blow, and then a gay flag was flung out over his
+head. He saw before him the girl he had shot; but her beautiful face
+was not waxen now, nor was it cold or lifeless. The rich red blood was
+strong under the browned, yet delicate skin, the eyes were bright and
+brave, the cherry lips, slightly apart, gave a glimpse of pearl white
+teeth, and the dimples,--those roguish dimples,--twinkled sweetly.
+
+Colonel Clark looked on in amazement, and in spite of himself, in
+admiration. He did not understand; the sudden incident bewildered him;
+but his virile nature was instantly and wholly charmed. Something like
+a breath of violets shook the tenderest chords of his heart.
+
+Alice stood firmly, a statue of triumph, her right arm outstretched,
+holding the flag high above Hamilton's head; and close by her side the
+little hunchback Jean was posed in his most characteristic attitude,
+gazing at the banner which he himself had stolen and kept hidden for
+Alice's sake, and because he loved it.
+
+There was a dead silence for some moments, during which Hamilton's face
+showed that he was ready to collapse; then the keen voice of Oncle
+Jazon broke forth:
+
+"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton! Vim la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!"
+
+He sprang to the middle of the area and flung his old cap high in air,
+with a shrill war-whoop.
+
+"H'ist it! h'ist it! hissez la banniere de Mademoiselle Alice
+Roussillon! Voila, que c'est glorieuse, cette banniere la! H'ist it!
+h'ist it!"
+
+He was dancing with a rickety liveliness, his goatish legs and
+shriveled body giving him the look of an emaciated satyr.
+
+Clark had been told by some of his creole officers the story of how
+Alice raised the flag when Helm took the fort, and how she snatched it
+from Hamilton's hand, as it were, and would not give it up when he
+demanded it. The whole situation pretty soon began to explain itself,
+as he saw what Alice was doing. Then he heard her say to Hamilton,
+while she slowly swayed the rippling flag back and forth:
+
+"I said, as you will remember, Monsieur le Gouverneur, that when you
+next should see this flag, I should wave it over your head. Well, look,
+I am waving it! Vive la republique! Vive George Washington! What do you
+think of it, Monsieur le Gouverneur?"
+
+The poor little hunchback Jean took off his cap and tossed it in
+rhythmical emphasis, keeping time to her words.
+
+And now from behind the hollow square came a mighty voice:
+
+"C'est moi, Gaspard Roussillon; me voici, messieurs!"
+
+There was a spirit in the air which caught from Alice a thrill of
+romantic energy. The men in the ranks and the officers in front of them
+felt a wave of irresistible sympathy sweep through their hearts. Her
+picturesque beauty, her fine temper, the fitness of the incident to the
+occasion, had an instantaneous power which moved all men alike.
+
+"Raise her flag! Run up the young lady's flag!" some one shouted, and
+then every voice seemed to echo the words. Clark was a young man of
+noble type, in whose veins throbbed the warm chivalrous blood of the
+cavaliers. A waft of the suddenly prevailing influence bore him also
+quite off his feet. He turned to Beverley and said:
+
+"Do it! It will have a great effect. It is a good idea; get the young
+lady's flag and her permission to run it up."
+
+Before he finished speaking, indeed at the first glance, he saw that
+Beverley, like Hamilton, was white as a dead man; and at the same time
+it came to his memory that his young friend had confided to him during
+the awful march through the prairie wilderness, a love-story about this
+very Alice Roussillon. In the worry and stress of the subsequent
+struggle, he had forgotten the tender basis upon which Beverley had
+rested his excuse for leaving Vincennes. Now, it all reappeared in
+justification of what was going on. It touched the romantic core of his
+southern nature.
+
+"I say, Lieutenant Beverley," he repeated, "beg the young lady's
+permission to use her flag upon this glorious occasion; or shall I do
+it for you?"
+
+There were no miracles in those brave days, and the strain of life with
+its terrible realities braced all men and women to meet sudden
+explosions of surprise, whether of good or bad effect, with admirable
+equipoise; but Beverley's trial, it must be admitted, was
+extraordinary; still he braced himself quickly and his whole expression
+changed when Clark moved to go to Alice. For he realized now that it
+was, indeed, Alice in flesh and blood, standing there, the center of
+admiration, filling the air with her fine magnetism and crowning a
+great triumph with her beauty. He gave her a glad, flashing smile, as
+if he had just discovered her, and walked straight to her, his hands
+extended. She was not looking toward him; but she saw him and turned to
+face him. Hers was the advantage; for she had known, for some hours, of
+his presence in Vincennes, and had prepared herself to meet him
+courageously and with maidenly reserve.
+
+There is no safety, however, where Love lurks. Neither Beverley nor
+Alice was as much agitated at Hamilton, yet they both forgot, what he
+remembered, that a hundred grim frontier soldiers were looking on.
+Hamilton had his personal and official dignity to sustain, and he
+fairly did it, under what a pressure of humiliating and surprising
+circumstances we can fully comprehend. Not so with the two young
+people, standing as it were in a suddenly bestowed and incomparable
+happiness, on the verge of a new life, each to the other an unexpected,
+unhoped-for resurrection from the dead. To them there was no universe
+save the illimitable expanse of their love. In that moment of meeting,
+all that they had suffered on account of love was transfused and poured
+forth,--a glowing libation for love's sake,--a flood before which all
+barriers broke.
+
+Father Beret was looking on with a strange fire in his eyes, and what
+he feared would happen, did happen. Alice let the flag fall at
+Hamilton's feet, when Beverley came near her smiling that great, glad
+smile, and with a joyous cry leaped into his outstretched arms.
+
+Jean snatched up the fallen banner and ran to Colonel Clark with it.
+Two minutes later it was made fast and the halyard began to squeak
+through the rude pulley at the top of the pole. Up, up, climbed the gay
+little emblem of glory, while the cannon crashed from the embrasures of
+the blockhouse hard by, and outside the roar of voices redoubled.
+Thirteen guns boomed the salute, though it should have been
+fourteen,--the additional one for the great Northwestern Territory,
+that day annexed to the domain of the young American Republic. The flag
+went up at old Vincennes never to come down again, and when it reached
+its place at the top of the staff, Beverley and Alice stood side by
+side looking at it, while the sun broke through the clouds and flashed
+on its shining folds, and love unabashed glorified the two strong young
+faces.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+SOME TRANSACTIONS IN SCALPS
+
+
+History would be a very orderly affair, could the dry-as-dust
+historians have their way, and doubtless it would be thrillingly
+romantic at every turn if the novelists were able to control its
+current. Fortunately neither one nor the other has much influence, and
+the result, in the long run, is that most novels are shockingly tame,
+while the large body of history is loaded down with picturesque
+incidents, which if used in fiction, would be thought absurdly romantic
+and improbable.
+
+Were our simple story of old Vincennes a mere fiction, we should
+hesitate to bring in the explosion of a magazine at the fort with a
+view to sudden confusion and, by that means, distracting attention from
+our heroine while she betakes herself out of a situation which,
+although delightful enough for a blessed minute, has quickly become an
+embarrassment quite unendurable. But we simply adhere to the
+established facts in history. Owing to some carelessness there was,
+indeed, an explosion of twenty-six six-pound cartridges, which made a
+mighty roar and struck the newly installed garrison into a heap, so to
+say, scattering things terribly and wounding six men, among them
+Captains Bowman and Worthington.
+
+After the thunderous crash came a momentary silence, which embraced
+both the people within the fort and the wild crowd outside. Then the
+rush and noise were indescribable. Even Clark gave way to excitement,
+losing command of himself and, of course, of his men. There was a
+stampede toward the main gate by one wing of the troops in the hollow
+square. They literally ran over Beverley and Alice, flinging them apart
+and jostling them hither and yonder without mercy. Of course the
+turmoil quickly subsided. Clark and Beverley got hold of themselves and
+sang out their peremptory orders with excellent effect. It was like oil
+on raging water; the men obeyed in a straggling way, getting back into
+ranks as best they could.
+
+"Ventrebleu!" squeaked Oncle Jazon, "ef I didn't think the ole world
+had busted into a million pieces!"
+
+He was jumping up and down not three feet from Beverley's toes, waving
+his cap excitedly.
+
+"But wasn't I skeert! Ya, ya, ya! Vive la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!
+Vive Zhorzh Vasinton!"
+
+Hearing Alice's name caused Beverley to look around. Where was she? In
+the distance he saw Father Beret hurrying to the spot where some of the
+men burnt and wounded by the explosion were being stripped and cared
+for. Hamilton still stood like a statue. He appeared to be the only
+cool person in the fort.
+
+"Where is Alice?--Miss Roussillon--where did Miss Roussillon go?"
+Beverley exclaimed, staring around like a lost man. "Where is she?"
+
+"D'know," said Oncle Jazon, resuming his habitual expression of droll
+dignity, "she shot apast me jes' as thet thing busted loose, an' she
+went like er hummin' bird, skitch!--jes' thet way--an' I didn't see 'r
+no more. 'Cause I was skeert mighty nigh inter seven fits; 'spect that
+'splosion blowed her clean away! Ventrebleu! never was so plum outen
+breath an' dead crazy weak o' bein' afeard!"
+
+"Lieutenant Beverley," roared Clark in his most commanding tone, "go to
+the gate and settle things there. That mob outside is trying to break
+in!"
+
+The order was instantly obeyed, but Beverley had relapsed. Once more
+his soul groped in darkness, while the whole of his life seemed unreal,
+a wavering, misty, hollow dream. And yet his military duty was all real
+enough. He knew just what to do when he reached the gate.
+
+"Back there at once!" he commanded, not loudly, but with intense force,
+"back there!" This to the inward surging wedge of excited outsiders.
+Then to the guard.
+
+"Shoot the first man who crosses the line!"
+
+"Ziff! me voici! moi! Gaspard Roussillon. Laissez-moi passer,
+messieurs."
+
+A great body hurled itself frantically past Beverley and the guard,
+going out through the gateway against the wall of the crowd, bearing
+everything before it and shouting:
+
+"Back, fools! you'll all be killed--the powder is on fire! Ziff! run!"
+
+Wild as a March hare, he bristled with terror and foamed at the mouth.
+He stampeded the entire mass. There was a wild howl; a rush in the
+other direction followed, and soon enough the esplanade and all the
+space back to the barricades and beyond were quite deserted.
+
+Alice was not aware that a serious accident had happened. Naturally she
+thought the great, rattling, crashing noise of the explosion a mere
+part of the spectacular show. When the rush followed, separating her
+and Beverley, it was a great relief to her in some way; for a sudden
+recognition of the boldness of her action in the little scene just
+ended, came over her and bewildered her. An impulse sent her running
+away from the spot where, it seemed to her, she had invited public
+derision. The terrible noises all around her were, she now fancied, but
+the jeering and hooting of rude men who had seen her unmaidenly
+forwardness.
+
+With a burning face she flew to the postern and slipped out, once more
+taking the course which had become so familiar to her feet. She did not
+slacken her speed until she reached the Bourcier cabin, where she had
+made her home since the night when Hamilton's pistol ball struck her.
+The little domicile was quite empty of its household, but Alice entered
+and flung herself into a chair, where she sat quivering and breathless
+when Adrienne, also much excited, came in, preceded by a stream of
+patois that sparkled continuously.
+
+"The fort is blown up!" she cried, gesticulating in every direction at
+once, her petite figure comically dilated with the importance of her
+statement. "A hundred men are killed, and the powder is on fire!"
+
+She pounced into Alice's arms, still talking as fast as her tongue
+could vibrate, changing from subject to subject without rhyme or
+reason, her prattle making its way by skips and shies until what was
+really upper-most in her sweet little heart disclosed itself.
+
+"And, O Alice! Rene has not come yet!"
+
+She plunged her dusky face between Alice's cheek and shoulder; Alice
+hugged her sympathetically and said:
+
+"But Rene will come, I know he will, dear."
+
+"Oh, but do you know it? is it true? who told you? when will he come?
+where is he? tell me about him!"
+
+Her head popped up from her friend's neck and she smiled brilliantly
+through the tears that were still sparkling on her long black lashes.
+
+"I didn't mean that I had heard from him, and I don't know where he is;
+but--but they always come back."
+
+"You say that because your man--because Lieutenant Beverley has
+returned. It is always so. You have everything to make you happy, while
+I--I--"
+
+Again her eyes spilled their shower, and she hid her face in her hands
+which Alice tried in vain to remove.
+
+"Don't cry, Adrienne. You didn't see me crying--"
+
+"No, of course not; you didn't have a thing to cry about. Lieutenant
+Beverley told you just where he was going and just what--"
+
+"But think, Adrienne, only think of the awful story they told--that he
+was killed, that Governor Hamilton had paid Long-Hair for killing him
+and bringing back his scalp--oh dear, just think! And I thought it was
+true."
+
+"Well, I'd be willing to think and believe anything in the world, if
+Rene would come back," said Adrienne, her face, now uncovered, showing
+pitiful lines of suffering. "O Alice, Alice, and he never, never will
+come!"
+
+Alice exhausted every device to cheer, encourage and comfort her.
+Adrienne had been so good to her when she lay recovering from the shock
+of Hamilton's pistol bullet, which, although it came near killing her,
+made no serious wound--only a bruise, in fact. It was one of those
+fortunate accidents, or providentially ordered interferences, which
+once in a while save a life. The stone disc worn by Alice chanced to
+lie exactly in the missile's way, and while it was not broken, the
+ball, already somewhat checked by passing through several folds of
+Father Beret's garments, flattened itself upon it with a shock which
+somehow struck Alice senseless.
+
+Here again, history in the form of an ancient family document (a letter
+written in 1821 by Alice herself), gives us the curious brace of
+incidents, to wit, the breaking of the miniature on Beverley's breast
+by a British musket-ball, and the stopping of Hamilton's bullet over
+Alice's heart by the Indian charm-stone.
+
+"Which shows the goodness of God," the letter goes on, "and also seems
+to sustain the Indian legend concerning the stone, that whoever might
+wear it could not be killed. Unquestionable (sic) Mr. Hamilton's shot,
+which was aimed at poor, dear old Father Beret, would have pierced my
+heart, but for that charm-stone. As for my locket, it did not, as some
+have reported, save Fitzhugh's life when the musket-ball was stopped.
+The ball was so spent that the blow was only hard enough to spoil
+temporary (sic) the face of the miniature, which was afterwards
+restored fairly well by an artist in Paris. When it did actually save
+Fitzhugh's life was out on the Illinois plain. The savage, Long-Hair,
+peace to his memory, worked the miracle of restoring to me--" Here a
+fold in the paper has destroyed a line of the writing.
+
+The letter is a sacred family paper, and there is not justification for
+going farther into its faded and, in some parts, almost obliterated
+writing. But so much may pass into these pages as a pleasant
+authentication of what otherwise might be altogether too sweet a double
+nut for the critic's teeth to crack.
+
+While Adrienne and Alice were still discussing the probability of Rene
+de Ronville's return, M. Roussillon came to the door. He was in search
+of Madame, his wife, whom he had not yet seen.
+
+He gathered the two girls in his mighty arms, tousling them with rough
+tenderness. Alice returned his affectionate embrace and told him where
+to find Madame Roussillon, who was with Dame Godere, probably at her
+house.
+
+"Nobody killed," he said, in answer to Alice's inquiry about the
+catastrophe at the fort. "Some of 'em hurt and burnt a little. Great
+big scare about nearly nothing. Ziff! my children, you should have seen
+me quiet things. I put out my hands, this way--omme ca--pouf! It was
+all over. The people went home."
+
+His gestures indicated that he had borne back an army with open hands.
+Then he chucked Adrienne under the chin with his finger and added in
+his softest voice:
+
+"I saw somebody's lover the other day, over yonder in the Indian
+village. He spoke to me about somebody--eh, ma petite, que voulez-vous
+dire?"
+
+"Oh, Papa Roussillon! we were just talking about Rene!" cried Alice.
+"Have you seen him?"
+
+"I saw you, you little minx, jumping into a man's arms right under the
+eyes of a whole garrison! Bah! I could not believe it was my little
+Alice!"
+
+He let go a grand guffaw, which seemed to shake the cabin's walls.
+Alice blushed cherry red. Adrienne, too bashful to inquire about Rene,
+was trembling with anxiety. The truth was not in Gaspard Roussillon,
+just then; or if it was it stayed in him, for he had not seen Rene de
+Ronville. It was his generous desire to please and to appear opulent of
+knowledge and sympathy that made him speak. He knew what would please
+Adrienne, so why not give her at least a delicious foretaste? Surely,
+when a thing was so cheap, one need not be so parsimonious as to
+withhold a mere anticipation. He was off before the girls could press
+him into details, for indeed he had none.
+
+"There now, what did I tell you?" cried Alice, when the big man was
+gone. "I told you Rene would come. They always come back!"
+
+Father Beret came in a little later. As soon as he saw Alice he frowned
+and began to shake his head; but she only laughed, and imitating his
+hypocritical scowl, yet fringing it with a twinkle of merry lines and
+dimples, pointed a taper finger at him and exclaimed:
+
+"You bad, bad, man! why did you pretend to me that Lieutenant Beverley
+was dead? What sinister ecclesiastical motive prompted you to describe
+how Long-Hair scalped him? Ah, Father--"
+
+The priest laid a broad hand over her saucy mouth. "Something or other
+seems to have excited you mightily, ma fille, you are a trifle
+impulsively inclined to-day."
+
+"Yes, Father Beret; yes I know, and I am ashamed. My heart shrinks when
+I think of what I did; but I was so glad, such a grand joy came all
+over me when I saw him, so strong and brave and beautiful, coming
+toward me, smiling that warm, glad smile and holding out his arms--ah,
+when I saw all that--when I knew for sure that he was not dead--I, why,
+Father--I just had to, I couldn't help it!"
+
+Father Beret laughed in spite of himself, but quickly managed to resume
+his severe countenance.
+
+"Ta! ta!" he exclaimed, "it was a bold thing for a little girl to do."
+
+"So it was, so it was. But it was also a bold thing for him to do--to
+come back after he was dead and scalped and look so handsome and grand!
+I'm ashamed and sorry, Father; but--but, I'm afraid I might do it again
+if--well, I don't care if I did--so there, now!"
+
+"But what in the world are you talking about?" interposed Adrienne.
+Evidently they were discussing a most interesting matter of which she
+knew nothing, and that did not suit her feminine curiosity. "Tell me."
+She pulled Father Beret's sleeve. "Tell me, I say!"
+
+It is probable that Father Beret would have pretended to betray Alice's
+source of mingled delight and embarrassment, had not the rest of the
+Bourcier household returned in time to break up the conversation. A
+little later Alice gave Adrienne a vividly dramatic account of the
+whole scene.
+
+"Ah, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the petite brunette, after she had heard the
+exciting story. "That was just like you, Alice. You always do superb
+things. You were born to do them. You shoot Captain Farnsworth, you
+wound Lieutenant Barlow, you climb onto the fort and set up your
+flag--you take it down again and run away with it--you get shot and you
+do not die--you kiss your lover right before a whole garrison! Bon
+Dieu! if I could but do all those things!"
+
+She clasped her tiny hands before her and added rather dejectedly: "But
+I couldn't, I couldn't. I couldn't kiss a man in that way!"
+
+Late in the evening news came to Roussillon place, where Gaspard
+Roussillon was once more happy in the midst of his little family, that
+the Indian Long-Hair had just been brought to the fort, and would be
+shot on the following day. A scouting party captured him as he
+approached the town, bearing at his belt the fresh scalp of a white
+man. He would have been killed forthwith, but Clark, who wished to
+avoid a repetition of the savage vengeance meted out to the Indians on
+the previous day, had given strict orders that all prisoners should be
+brought into the fort, where they were to have a fair trial by court
+martial.
+
+Both Helm and Beverley were at Roussillon place, the former sipping
+wine and chatting with Gaspard, the latter, of course, hovering around
+Alice, after the manner of a hungry bee around a particularly sweet and
+deliciously refractory flower. It was raining slowly, the fine drops
+coming straight down through the cold, still February air; but the two
+young people found it pleasant enough for them on the veranda, where
+they walked back and forth, making fair exchange of the exciting
+experiences which had befallen them during their long separation.
+Between the lines of these mutual recitals sweet, fresh echoes of the
+old, old story went from heart to heart, an amoebaean love-bout like
+that of spring birds calling tenderly back and forth in the blooming
+Maytime woods.
+
+Both Captain Helm and M. Roussillon were delighted to hear of
+Long-Hair's capture and certain fate, but neither of them regarded the
+news as of sufficient importance to need much comment. They did not
+think of telling Beverley and Alice. Jean, however, lying awake in his
+little bed, overheard the conversation, which he repeated to Alice next
+morning with great circumstantiality.
+
+Having the quick insight bred of frontier experience, Alice instantly
+caught the terrible significance of the dilemma in which she and
+Beverley would be placed by Long-Hair's situation. Moreover, something
+in her heart arose with irresistible power demanding the final, the
+absolute human sympathy and gratitude. No matter what deeds Long-Hair
+had committed that were evil beyond forgiveness, he had done for her
+the all-atoning thing. He had saved Beverley and sent him back to her.
+
+With a start and a chill of dread, she thought: "What if it is already
+too late!"
+
+But her nature could not hesitate. To feel the demand of an exigency
+was to act. She snatched a wrap from its peg on the wall and ran as
+fast as she could to the fort. People who met her flying along
+wondered, staring after her, what could be urging her so that she saw
+nobody, checked herself for nothing, ran splashing through the puddles
+in the street, gazing ahead of her, as if pursuing some flying object
+from which she dared not turn her eyes.
+
+And there was, indeed, a call for her utmost power of flight, if she
+would be of any assistance to Long-Hair, who even then stood bound to a
+stake in the fort's area, while a platoon of riflemen, those unerring
+shots from Kentucky and Virginia, were ready to make a target of him at
+a range of but twenty yards.
+
+Beverley, greatly handicapped by the fact that the fresh scalp of a
+white man hung at Long-Hair's belt, had exhausted every possible
+argument to avert or mitigate the sentence promptly spoken by the court
+martial of which Colonel Clark was the ruling spirit. He had succeeded
+barely to the extent of turning the mode of execution from tomahawking
+to shooting. All the officers in the fort approved killing the
+prisoner, and it was difficult for Colonel Clark to prevent the men
+from making outrageous assaults upon him, so exasperated were they at
+sight of the scalp.
+
+Oncle Jazon proved to be one of the most refractory among those who
+demanded tomahawking and scalping as the only treatment due Long-Hair.
+The repulsive savage stood up before them stolid, resolute, defiant,
+proudly flaunting the badge which testified to his horrible efficiency
+as an emissary of Hamilton's. It had been left in his belt by Clark's
+order, as the best justification of his doom.
+
+"L' me hack 'is damned head," Oncle Jazon pleaded. "I jes' hankers to
+chop a hole inter it. An' besides I want 'is scelp to hang up wi' mine
+an' that'n o' the Injun what scelped me. He kicked me in the ribs, the
+stinkin' varmint."
+
+Beverley pleaded eloquently and well, but even the genial Major Helm
+laughed at his sentiment of gratitude to a savage who at best but
+relented at the last moment, for Alice's sake, and concluded not to
+sell him to Hamilton. It is due to the British commander to record here
+that he most positively and with what appeared to be high sincerity,
+denied the charge of having offered rewards for the taking of human
+scalps. He declared that his purposes and practices were humane, and
+that while he did use the Indians as military allies, his orders to
+them were that they must forego cruel modes of warfare and refrain from
+savage outrage upon prisoners. Certainly the weight of contemporary
+testimony seems overwhelmingly against him, but we enter his denial.
+Long-Hair himself, however, taunted him with accusations of
+unfaithfulness in carrying out some very inhuman contracts, and to add
+a terrible sting, volunteered the statement that poor Barlow's scalp
+had served his turn in the place of Beverley's.
+
+With conditions so hideous to contend against, Beverley, of course, had
+no possible means of succoring the condemned savage.
+
+"Him a kickin' yer ribs clean inter ye, an' a makin' ye run the
+ga'ntlet, an' here ye air a tryin' to save 'is life!" whined Oncle
+Jazon, "W'y man, I thought ye hed some senterments! Dast 'is Injin
+liver, I kin feel them kicks what he guv me till yit. Ventrebleu! que
+diable voulez-vous?"
+
+Clark simply pushed Beverley's pleadings aside as not worth a moment's
+consideration. He easily felt the fine bit of gratitude at the bottom
+of it all; but there was too much in the other side of the balance;
+justice, the discipline and confidence of his little army, and the
+claim of the women and children on the frontier demanded firmness in
+dealing with a case like Long-Hair's.
+
+"No, no," he said to Beverley, "I would do anything in the world for
+you, Fitz, except to swerve an inch from duty to my country and the
+defenceless people down yonder in Kentucky, I can't do it. There's no
+use to press the matter further. The die is cast. That brute's got to
+be killed, and killed dead. Look at him--look at that scalp! I'd have
+him killed if I dropped dead for it the next instant."
+
+Beverley shuddered. The argument was horribly convincing, and yet,
+somehow, the desire to save Long-Hair overbore everything else in his
+mind. He could not cease his efforts; it seemed to him as if he were
+pleading for Alice herself. Captain Farnsworth, strange to say, was the
+only man in the fort who leaned to Beverley's side; but he was
+reticent, doubtless feeling that his position as a British prisoner
+gave him no right to speak, especially when every lip around him was
+muttering something about "infamous scalp-buyers and Indian partisans,"
+with whom he was prominently counted by the speakers.
+
+As Clark had said, the die was cast. Long-Hair, bound to a stake, the
+scalp still dangling at his side, grimly faced his executioners, who
+were eager to fire. He appeared to be proud of the fact that he was
+going to be killed.
+
+"One thing I can say of him," Helm remarked to Beverley; "he's the
+grandest specimen of the animal--I might say the brute--man that I ever
+saw, red, white or black. Just look at his body and limbs! Those
+muscles are perfectly marvelous."
+
+"He saved my life, and I must stand here and see him murdered," the
+young man replied with intense bitterness. It was all that he could
+think, all that he could say. He felt inefficient and dejected, almost
+desperate.
+
+Clark himself, not willing to cast responsibility upon a subordinate,
+made ready to give the fatal order. Turning to Long-Hair first, he
+demanded of him as well as he could in the Indian dialect of which he
+had a smattering, what he had to say at his last moment.
+
+The Indian straightened his already upright form, and, by a strong
+bulging of his muscles, snapped the thongs that bound him. Evidently he
+had not tried thus to free himself; it was rather a spasmodic
+expression of savage dignity and pride. One arm and both his legs still
+were partially confined by the bonds, but his right hand he lifted,
+with a gesture of immense self-satisfaction, and pointed at Hamilton.
+
+"Indian brave; white man coward," he said, scowling scornfully.
+"Long-Hair tell truth; white man lie, damn!"
+
+Hamilton's countenance did not change its calm, cold expression.
+Long-Hair gazed at him fixedly for a long moment, his eyes flashing
+most concentrated hate and contempt. Then he tore the scalp from his
+belt and flung it with great force straight toward the captive
+Governor's face. It fell short, but the look that went with it did not,
+and Hamilton recoiled.
+
+At that moment Alice arrived. Her coming was just in time to interrupt
+Clark, who had turned to the waiting platoon with the order of death on
+his lips. She made no noise, save the fluttering of her skirts, and her
+loud and rapid panting on account of her long, hard run. She sprang
+before Long-Hair and faced the platoon.
+
+"You cannot, you shall not kill this man!" she cried in a voice loaded
+with excitement. "Put away those guns!"
+
+Woman never looked more thrillingly beautiful to man than she did just
+then to all those rough, stern backwoodsmen. During her flight her hair
+had fallen down, and it glimmered like soft sunlight around her face.
+Something compelling flashed out of her eyes, an expression between a
+triumphant smile and a ray of irresistible beseechment. It took Colonel
+Clark's breath when he turned and saw her standing there, and heard her
+words.
+
+"This man saved Lieutenant Beverley's life," she presently added,
+getting better control of her voice, and sending into it a thrilling
+timbre; "you shall not harm him--you must not do it!"
+
+Beverley was astounded when he saw her, the thing was so unexpected, so
+daring, and done with such high, imperious force; still it was but a
+realization of what he had imagined she would be upon occasion. He
+stood gazing at her, as did all the rest, while she faced Clark and the
+platoon of riflemen. To hear his own name pass her quivering lips, in
+that tone and in that connection, seemed to him a consecration.
+
+"Would you be more savage than your Indian prisoner?" she went on,
+"less grateful than he for a life saved? I did him a small, a very
+small, service once, and in memory of that he saved Lieutenant
+Beverley's life, because--because--" she faltered for a single breath,
+then added clearly and with magnetic sweetness--"because Lieutenant
+Beverley loved me, and because I loved him. This Indian Long-Hair
+showed a gratitude that could overcome his strongest passion. You white
+men should be ashamed to fall below his standard."
+
+Her words went home. It was as if the beauty of her face, the magnetism
+of her lissome and symmetrical form, the sweet fire of her eyes and the
+passionate appeal of her voice gave what she said a new and
+irresistible force of truth. When she spoke of Beverley's love for her,
+and declared her love for him, there was not a manly heart in all the
+garrison that did not suddenly beat quicker and feel a strange, sweet
+waft of tenderness. A mother, somewhere, a wife, a daughter, a sister,
+a sweetheart, called through that voice of absolute womanhood.
+
+"Beverley, what can I do?" muttered Clark, his bronze face as pale as
+it could possibly become.
+
+"Do!" thundered Beverley, "do! you cannot murder that man. Hamilton is
+the man you should shoot! He offered large rewards, he inflamed the
+passions and fed the love of rum and the cupidity of poor wild men like
+the one standing yonder. Yet you take him prisoner and treat him with
+distinguished consideration. Hamilton offered a large sum for me taken
+alive, a smaller one for my scalp. Long-Hair saved me. You let Hamilton
+stand yonder in perfect safety while you shoot the Indian. Shame on
+you, Colonel Clark! shame on you, if you do it."
+
+Alice stood looking at the stalwart commander while Beverley was
+pouring forth his torrent of scathing reference to Hamilton, and she
+quickly saw that Clark was moved. The moment was ripe for the finishing
+stroke. They say it is genius that avails itself of opportunity.
+Beverley knew the fight was won when he saw what followed. Alice
+suddenly left Long-Hair and ran to Colonel Clark, who felt her warm,
+strong arms loop round him for a single point of time never to be
+effaced from his memory; then he saw her kneeling at his feet, her
+hands upstretched, her face a glorious prayer, while she pleaded the
+Indian's cause and won it.
+
+Doubtless, while we all rather feel that Clark was weak to be thus
+swayed by a girl, we cannot quite blame him. Alice's flag was over him;
+he had heard her history from Beverley's cunning lips; he actually
+believed that Hamilton was the real culprit, and besides he felt not a
+little nauseated with executing Indians. A good excuse to have an end
+of it all did not go begging.
+
+But Long-Hair was barely gone over the horizon from the fort, as free
+and as villainous a savage as ever trod the earth, when a discovery
+made by Oncle Jazon caused Clark to hate himself for what he had done.
+
+The old scout picked up the scalp, which Long-Hair had flung at
+Hamilton, and examined it with odious curiosity. He had lingered on the
+spot with no other purpose than to get possession of that ghastly
+relic. Since losing his own scalp the subject of crownlocks had grown
+upon his mind until its fascination was irresistible. He studied the
+hair of every person he saw, as a physiognomist studies faces. He held
+the gruesome thing up before him, scrutinizing it with the expression
+of a connoisseur who has discovered, on a grimy canvas, the signature
+of an old master.
+
+"Sac' bleu!" he presently broke forth. "Well I'll be--Look'ee yer,
+George Clark! Come yer an' look. Ye've been sold ag'in. Take a squint,
+ef ye please!"
+
+Colonel Clark, with his hands crossed behind him, his face thoughtfully
+contracted, was walking slowly to and fro a little way off. He turned
+about when Oncle Jazon spoke.
+
+"What now, Jazon?"
+
+"A mighty heap right now, that's what; come yer an' let me show ye. Yer
+a fine sort o' eejit, now ain't ye!"
+
+The two men walked toward each other and met. Oncle Jazon held up the
+scalp with one hand, pointing at it with the index finger of the other.
+
+"This here scalp come off'n Rene de Ronville's head."
+
+"And who is he?"
+
+"Who's he? Ye may well ax thet. He wuz a Frenchman. He wuz a fine young
+feller o' this town. He killed a Corp'ral o' Hamilton's an' tuck ter
+the woods a month or two ago. Hamilton offered a lot o' money for 'im
+or 'is scalp, an' Long-Hair went in fer gittin' it. Now ye knows the
+whole racket. An' ye lets that Injun go. An' thet same Injun he mighty
+nigh kicked my ribs inter my stomach!"
+
+Oncle Jazon's feelings were visible and audible; but Clark could not
+resent the contempt of the old man's looks and words. He felt that he
+deserved far more than he was receiving. Nor was Oncle Jazon wrong.
+Rene de Ronville never came back to little Adrienne Bourcier, although,
+being kept entirely ignorant of her lover's fate, she waited and
+dreamed and hoped throughout more than two years, after which there is
+no further record of her life.
+
+Clark, Beverley and Oncle Jazon consulted together and agreed among
+themselves that they would hold profoundly secret the story of the
+scalp. To have made it public would have exasperated the creoles and
+set them violently against Clark, a thing heavy with disaster for all
+his future plans. As it was, the release of Long-Hair caused a great
+deal of dissatisfaction and mutinous talk. Even Beverley now felt that
+the execution ordered by the commander ought to have been sternly
+carried out.
+
+A day or two later, however, the whole dark affair was closed forever
+by a bit of confidence on the part of Oncle Jazon when Beverley dropped
+into his hut one evening to have a smoke with him.
+
+The rain was over, the sky shone like one vast luminary, with a nearly
+full moon and a thousand stars reinforcing it. Up from the south poured
+one of those balmy, accidental wind floods, sometimes due in February
+on the Wabash, full of tropical dream-hints, yet edged with a winter
+chill that smacks of treachery. Oncle Jazon was unusually talkative; he
+may have had a deep draught of liquor; at all events Beverley had
+little room for a word.
+
+"Well, bein' as it's twixt us, as is bosom frien's," the old fellow
+presently said, "I'll jes' show ye somepin poorty."
+
+He pricked the wick of a lamp and took down his bunch of scalps.
+
+"I hev been a addin' one more to keep company o' mine an' the tothers."
+
+He separated the latest acquisition from the rest of the wisp and
+added, with a heinous chuckle:
+
+"This'n's Long-Hair's!"
+
+And so it was. Beverley knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose to go.
+
+"Wen they kicks yer Oncle Jazon's ribs," the old man added, "they'd
+jes' as well lay down an' give up, for he's goin' to salervate 'em."
+
+Then, after Beverley had passed out of the cabin, Oncle Jazon chirruped
+after him:
+
+"Mebbe ye'd better not tell leetle Alice. The pore leetle gal hev hed
+worry 'nough."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CLARK ADVISES ALICE
+
+
+A few days after the surrender of Hamilton, a large boat, the Willing,
+arrived from Kaskaskia. It was well manned and heavily armed. Clark
+fitted it out before beginning his march and expected it to be of great
+assistance to him in the reduction of the fort, but the high waters and
+the floating driftwood delayed its progress, so that its disappointed
+crew saw Alice's flag floating bright and high when their eyes first
+looked upon the dull little town from far down the swollen river. There
+was much rejoicing, however, when they came ashore and were
+enthusiastically greeted by the garrison and populace. A courier whom
+they picked up on the Ohio came with them. He bore dispatches from
+Governor Henry of Virginia to Clark and a letter for Beverley from his
+father. With them appeared also Simon Kenton, greatly to the delight of
+Oncle Jazon, who had worried much about his friend since their latest
+fredaine--as he called it--with the Indians. Meantime an expedition
+under Captain Helm had been sent up the river with the purpose of
+capturing a British flotilla from Detroit.
+
+Gaspard Roussillon, immediately after Clark's victory, thought he saw a
+good opening favorable to festivity at the river house, for which he
+soon began to make some of his most ostentatious preparations. Fate,
+however, as usual in his case, interfered. Fate seemed to like pulling
+the big Frenchman's ear now and again, as if to remind him of the
+fact--which he was apt to forget--that he lacked somewhat of
+omnipotence.
+
+"Ziff! Je vais donner un banquet a tout le moonde, moi!" he cried,
+hustling and bustling hither and thither.
+
+A scout from up the river announced the approach of Philip Dejean with
+his flotilla richly laden, and what little interest may have been
+gathering in the direction of M. Roussillon's festal proposition
+vanished like the flame of a lamp in a puff of wind when this news
+reached Colonel Clark and became known in the town.
+
+Beverley and Alice sat together in the main room of the Roussillon
+cabin--you could scarcely find them separated during those happy
+days--and Alice was singing to the soft tinkle of a guitar, a Creole
+ditty with a merry smack in its scarcely intelligible nonsense. She
+knew nothing about music beyond what M. Roussillon, a jack of all
+trades, had been able to teach her,--a few simple chords to accompany
+her songs, picked up at hap-hazard. But her voice, like her face and
+form, irradiated witchery. It was sweet, firm, deep, with something
+haunting in it--the tone of a hermit thrush, marvelously pure and
+clear, carried through a gay strain like the mocking-bird's. Of course
+Beverley thought it divine; and when a message came from Colonel Clark
+bidding him report for duty at once, he felt an impulse toward mutiny
+of the rankest sort. He did not dream that a military expedition could
+be on hand; but upon reaching headquarters, the first thing he heard
+was:
+
+"Report to Captain Helm. You are to go with him up the river and
+intercept a British force. Move lively, Helm is waiting for you,
+probably."
+
+There was no time for explanations. Evidently Clark expected neither
+questions nor delay. Beverley's love of adventure and his patriotic
+desire to serve his country came to his aid vigorously enough; still,
+with Alice's love-song ringing in his heart, there was a cord pulling
+him back from duty to the sweetest of all life's joys.
+
+Helm was already at the landing, where a little fleet of boats was
+being prepared. A thousand things had to be done in short order. All
+hands were stimulated to highest exertion with the thought of another
+fight. Swivels were mounted in boats, ammunition and provisions stored
+abundantly, flags hoisted and oars dipped. Never was an expedition of
+so great importance more swiftly organized and set in motion, nor did
+one ever have a more prosperous voyage or completer triumph. Philip
+Dejean, Justice of Detroit, with his men, boats and rich cargo, was
+captured easily, with not a shot fired, nor a drop of blood spilled in
+doing it.
+
+If Alice could have known all this before it happened, she would
+probably have saved herself from the mortification of a rebuke
+administered very kindly, but not the less thoroughly, by Colonel Clark.
+
+The rumor came to her--a brilliant creole rumor, duly inflated--that an
+overwhelming British force was descending the river, and that Beverley
+with a few men, not sufficient to base the expedition on a respectable
+forlorn hope, would be sent to meet them. Her nature, as was its wont,
+flared into high indignation. What right had Colonel Clark to send her
+lover away to be killed just at the time when he was all the whole
+world to her? Nothing could be more outrageous. She would not suffer it
+to be done; not she!
+
+Colonel Clark greeted her pleasantly, when she came somewhat abruptly
+to him, where he was directing a squad of men at work making some
+repairs in the picketing of the fort. He did not observe her excitement
+until she began to speak, and then it was noticeable only, and not very
+strongly, in her tone. She forgot to speak English, and her French was
+Greek to him.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Mademoiselle," he said, rather inconsequently,
+lifting his hat and bowing with rough grace, while he extended his
+right hand cordially. "You have something to say to me? Come with me to
+my office."
+
+She barely touched his fingers.
+
+"Yes, I have something to say to you. I can tell it here," she said,
+speaking English now with softest Creole accent. "I wanted--I came
+to--" It was not so easy as she had imagined it would be to utter what
+she had in mind. Clark's steadfast, inscrutable eyes, kindly yet not
+altogether sympathetic, met her own and beat them down. Her voice
+failed.
+
+He offered her his arm and gravely said:
+
+"We will go to my office. I see that you have some important
+communication to make. There are too many ears here."
+
+Of a sudden she felt like running home. Somehow the situation broke
+upon her with a most embarrassing effect. She did not take Clark's arm,
+and she began to tremble. He appeared unconscious of this, and probably
+was, for his mind had a fine tangle of great schemes in it just then;
+but he turned toward his office, and bidding her follow him, walked
+away in that direction.
+
+She was helpless. Not the slightest trace of her usual brilliant
+self-assertion was at her command. Saving the squad of men sawing and
+hacking, digging and hammering, the fort appeared as deserted as her
+mind. She stood gazing after Clark. He did not look back, but strode
+right on. If she would speak with him, she must follow. It was a
+surprise to her, for heretofore she had always had her own way, even if
+she found it necessary to use force. And where was Beverley? Where was
+the garrison? Colonel Clark did not seem to be at all concerned about
+the approach of the British--and yet those repairs--perhaps he was
+making ready for a desperate resistance! She did not move until he
+reached the door of his office where he stopped and stepped aside, as
+if to let her pass in first; he even lifted his hat, then looked a
+trifle surprised when he saw that she was not near him, frowned
+slightly, changed the frown to a smile and said, lifting his voice so
+that she felt a certain imperative meaning in it:
+
+"Did I walk too fast for you? I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle."
+
+He stood waiting for her, as a father waits for a lagging, wilful child.
+
+"Come, please," he added, "if you have something to say to me; my time
+just now is precious--I have a great deal to do."
+
+She was not of a nature to retreat under fire, and yet the panic in her
+breast came very near mastering her will. Clark saw a look in her face
+which made him speak again:
+
+"I assure you, Mademoiselle, that you need not feel embarrassed. You
+can rely upon me to--"
+
+She made a gesture that interrupted him; at the same time she almost
+ran toward him, gathering in breath, as one does who is about to force
+out a desperately resisting and riotous thought. The strong, grave man
+looked at her with a full sense of her fascination, and at the same
+time he felt a vague wish to get away from her, as if she were about to
+cast unwelcome responsibility upon him.
+
+"Where is Lieutenant Beverley?" she demanded, now close to Clark, face
+to face, and gazing straight into his eyes. "I want to see him." Her
+tone suggested intensest excitement. She was trembling visibly.
+
+Clark's face changed its expression. He suddenly recalled to mind
+Alice's rapturous public greeting of Beverley on the day of the
+surrender. He was a cavalier, and it did not agree with his sense of
+high propriety for girls to kiss their lovers out in the open air
+before a gazing army. True enough, he himself had been hoodwinked by
+Alice's beauty and boldness in the matter of Long-Hair. He confessed
+this to himself mentally, which may have strengthened his present
+disapproval of her personal inquiry about Beverley. At all events he
+thought she ought not to be coming into the stockade on such an errand.
+
+"Lieutenant Beverley is absent acting under my orders he said, with
+perfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military finality. He
+meant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke in his words.
+
+"Absent?" she echoed. "Gone? You sent him away to be killed! You had no
+right--you--"
+
+"Miss Roussillon," said Clark, becoming almost stern, "you had better
+go home and stay there; young girls oughtn't to run around hunting men
+in places like this."
+
+His blunt severity of speech was accompanied by a slight frown and a
+gesture of impatience.
+
+Alice's face blazed red to the roots of her sunny hair; the color
+ebbed, giving place to a pallor like death. She began to tremble, and
+her lips quivered pitifully, but she braced herself and tried to force
+back the choking sensation in her throat.
+
+"You must not misconstrue my words," Clark quickly added; "I simply
+mean that men will not rightly understand you. They will form
+impressions very harmful to you. Even Lieutenant Beverley might not see
+you in the right light."
+
+"What--what do you mean?" she gasped, shrinking from him, a burning
+spot reappearing under the dimpled skin of each cheek.
+
+"Pray, Miss, do not get excited. There is nothing to make you cry." He
+saw tears shining in her eyes. "Beverley is not in the slightest
+danger. All will be well, and he'll come back in a few days. The
+expedition will be but a pleasure trip. Now you go home. Lieutenant
+Beverley is amply able to take care of himself. And let me tell you, if
+you expect a good man to have great confidence in you, stay home and
+let him hunt you up instead of you hunting him. A man likes that
+better."
+
+It would be impossible to describe Alice's feelings, as they just then
+rose like a whirling storm in her heart. She was humiliated, she was
+indignant, she was abashed; she wanted to break forth with a tempest of
+denial, self-vindication, resentment; she wanted to cry with her face
+hidden in her hands. What she did was to stand helplessly gazing at
+Clark, with two or three bright tears on either cheek, her hands
+clenched, her eyes flashing. She was going to say some wild thing; but
+she did not; her voice lodged fast in her throat. She moved her lips,
+unable to make a sound.
+
+Two of Clark's officers relieved the situation by coming up to get
+orders about some matter of town government, and Alice scarcely knew
+how she made her way home. Every vein in her body was humming like a
+bee when she entered the house and flung herself into a chair.
+
+She heard Madame Roussillon and Father Beret chatting in the kitchen,
+whence came a fragrance of broiling buffalo steak besprinkled with
+garlic. It was Father Beret's favorite dish, wherefore his tongue ran
+freely--almost as freely as that of his hostess, and when he heard
+Alice come in, he called gayly to her through the kitchen door:
+
+"Come here, ma fille, and lend us old folks your appetite; nous avons
+une tranche a la Bordelaise!"
+
+"I am not hungry," she managed to say, "you can eat it without me."
+
+The old man's quick ears caught the quaver of trouble in her voice,
+much as she tried to hide it. A moment later he was standing beside her
+with his hand on her head.
+
+"What is the matter now, little one?" he tenderly demanded. "Tell your
+old Father."
+
+She began to cry, laying her face in her crossed arms, the tears
+gushing, her whole frame aquiver, and heaving great sobs. She seemed to
+shrink like a trodden flower. It touched Father Beret deeply.
+
+He suspected that Beverley's departure might be the cause of her
+trouble; but when presently she told him what had taken place in the
+fort, he shook his head gravely and frowned.
+
+"Colonel Clark was right, my daughter," he said after a short silence,
+"and it is time for you to ponder well upon the significance of his
+words. You can't always be a wilful, headstrong little girl, running
+everywhere and doing just as you please. You have grown to be a woman
+in stature--you must be one in fact. You know I told you at first to be
+careful how you acted with--"
+
+"Father, dear old Father!" she cried, springing from her seat and
+throwing her arms around his neck. "Have I appeared forward and
+unwomanly? Tell me, Father, tell me! I did not mean to do anything--"
+
+"Quietly, my child, don't give way to excitement." He gently put her
+from him and crossed himself--a habit of his when suddenly
+perplexed--then added:
+
+"You have done no evil; but there are proprieties which a young woman
+must not overstep. You are impulsive, too impulsive; and it will not do
+to let a young man see that you--that you--"
+
+"Father, I understand," she interrupted, and her face grew very pale.
+
+Madame Roussillon came to the door, flushed with stooping over the
+fire, and announced that the steak was ready.
+
+"Bring the wine, Alice," she added, "a bottle of Bordeaux."
+
+She stood for a breath of two, her red hands on her hips, looking first
+at Father Beret, then at Alice.
+
+"Quarreling again about the romances?" she inquired. "She's been at it
+again?--she's found 'em again?"
+
+"Yes," said Father Beret, with a queer, dry smile, "more romance. Yes,
+she's been at it again! Now fetch the Bordeaux, little one."
+
+The following days were cycles of torture to Alice. She groveled in the
+shadow of a great dread. It seemed to her that Beverley could not love
+her, could not help looking upon her as a poor, wild, foolish girl,
+unworthy of consideration. She magnified her faults and crudities, she
+paraded before her inner vision her fecent improprieties, as they had
+been disclosed to her, until she saw herself a sort of monstrosity at
+which all mankind was gazing with disgust. Life seemed dry and
+shriveled, a mere jaundiced shadow, while her love for Beverley took on
+a new growth, luxuriant, all-embracing, uncontrollable. The ferment of
+spirit going on in her breast was the inevitable process of
+self-recognition which follows the terrible unfolding of the
+passion-flower, in a nature almost absolutely simple and
+unsophisticated.
+
+Vincennes held its breath while waiting for news from Helm's
+expedition. Every day had its nimble, yet wholly imaginary account of
+what had happened, skipping from mouth to mouth, and from cabin to
+cabin. The French folk ran hither and thither in the persistent rain,
+industriously improving the dramatic interest of each groundless
+report. Alice's disturbed imagination reveled in the kaleidoscopic
+terrors conjured up by these swift changes of the form and color of the
+stories "from the front," all of them more or less tragic. To-day the
+party is reported as having been surprised and massacred to a
+man--to-morrow there has been a great fight, many killed, the result in
+doubt--next day the British are defeated, and so on. The volatile
+spirit of the Creoles fairly surpassed itself in ringing the changes on
+stirring rumors.
+
+Alice scarcely left the house during the whole period of excitement and
+suspense. Like a wounded bird, she withdrew herself from the light and
+noisy chatter of her friends, seeking only solitude and crepuscular
+nooks in which to suffer silently. Jean brought her every picturesque
+bit of the ghastly gossip, thus heaping coals on the fire of her
+torture. But she did not grow pale and thin. Not a dimple fled from
+cheek or chin, not a ray of saucy sweetness vanished from her eyes. Her
+riant health was unalterable. Indeed, the only change in her was a
+sudden ripening and mellowing of her beauty, by which its colors, its
+lines, its subtle undercurrents of expression were spiritualized, as if
+by some powerful clarifying process.
+
+Tremendous is the effect of a soul surprised by passion and brought
+hard up against an opposing force which dashes it back upon itself with
+a flare and explosion of self-revealment. Nor shall we ever be able to
+foretell just how small a circumstance, just how slight an exigency,
+will suffice to bring on the great change. The shifting of a smile to
+the gloom of a frown, the snap of a string on the lute of our
+imagination, just at the point when a rich melody is culminating; the
+waving of a hand, a vanishing face--any eclipse of tender, joyous
+expectation--dashes a nameless sense of despair into the soul. And a
+young girl's soul--who shall uncover its sacred depths of
+sensitiveness, or analyze its capacity for suffering under such a
+stroke?
+
+On the fifth day of March, back came the victorious Helm, having
+surrounded and captured seven boats, richly loaded with provisions and
+goods, and Dejean's whole force. Then again the little Creole town went
+wild with rejoicing. Alice heard the news and the noise; but somehow
+there was no response in her heart. She dreaded to meet Beverley;
+indeed, she did not expect him to come to her. Why should he?
+
+M. Roussillon, who had volunteered to accompany Helm, arrived in a mood
+of unlimited proportions, so far as expressing self-admiration and
+abounding delight was concerned. You would have been sure that he had
+done the whole deed single-handed, and brought the flotilla and
+captives to town on his back. But Oncle Jazon for once held his tongue,
+being too disgusted for words at not having been permitted to fire a
+single shot. What was the use of going to fight and simply meeting and
+escorting down the river a lot of non-combatants?
+
+There is something inscrutably delightful about a girl's way of
+thinking one thing and doing another. Perversity, thy name is
+maidenhood; and maidenhood, thy name is delicious inconsequence! When
+Alice heard that Beverley had come back, safe, victorious, to be
+greeted as one of the heroes of an important adventure, she immediately
+ran to her room frightened and full of vague, shadowy dread, to hide
+from him, yet feeling sure that he would not come! Moreover, she busied
+herself with the preposterous task of putting on her most attractive
+gown--the buff brocade which she wore that evening at the river
+house--how long ago it seemed!--when Beverley thought her the
+queenliest beauty in the world. And she was putting it on so as to look
+her prettiest while hiding from him!
+
+It is a toss-up where happiness will make its nest. The palace, the
+hut, the great lady's garden, the wild lass's bower,--skip here, alight
+there,--the secret of it may never be told. And love and beauty find
+lodgment, by the same inexplicable route, in the same extremes of
+circumstances. The wind bloweth where it listeth, finding many a
+matchless flower and many a ravishing fragrance in the wildest nooks of
+the world.
+
+No sooner did Beverley land at the little wharf than, rushing to his
+quarters, he made a hasty exchange of water-soaked apparel for
+something more comfortable, and then bolted in the direction of
+Roussillon place.
+
+Now Alice knew by the beating of her heart that he was coming. In spite
+of all she could do, trying to hold on hard and fast to her doubt and
+gloom, a tide of rich sweetness began to course through her heart and
+break in splendid expectation from her eyes, as they looked through the
+little unglazed window toward the fort. Nor had she long to wait. He
+came up the narrow wet street, striding like a tall actor in the height
+of a melodrama, his powerful figure erect as an Indian's, and his face
+glowing with the joy of a genuine, impatient lover, who is proud of
+himself because of the image he bears in his heart.
+
+When Alice flung wide the door (which was before Beverley could cross
+the veranda), she had quite forgotten how she had gowned and bedecked
+herself; and so, without a trace of self-consciousness, she flashed
+upon him a full-blown flower--to his eyes the loveliest that ever
+opened under heaven.
+
+Gaspard Roussillon, still overflowing with the importance of his part
+in the capture of Dejean, came puffing homeward just in time to see a
+man at the door holding Alice a-tiptoe in his arms.
+
+"Ziff!" he cried, as he pushed open the little front gate of the yard,
+"en voila assez, vogue la galere!"
+
+The two forms disappeared within the house, as if moved by his roaring
+voice.
+
+The letter to Beverley from his father was somewhat disturbing. It bore
+the tidings of his mother's failing health. This made it easier for the
+young Lieutenant to accept from Clark the assignment to duty with a
+party detailed for the purpose of escorting Hamilton, Farnsworth and
+several other British officers to Williamsburg, Virginia. It also gave
+him a most powerful assistance in persuading Alice to marry him at
+once, so as to go with him on what proved to be a delightful wedding
+journey through the great wilderness to the Old Dominion. Spring's
+verdure burst abroad on the sunny hills as they slowly went their way;
+the mating birds sang in every blooming brake and grove by which they
+passed, and in their joyous hearts they heard the bubbling of love's
+eternal fountain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+AND SO IT ENDED
+
+
+Our story must end here, because at this point its current flows away
+forever from old Vincennes; and it was only of the post on the Wabash
+that we set out to make a record. What befell Alice and Beverley after
+they went to Virginia we could go on to tell; but that would be another
+story. Suffice it to say, they lived happily ever after, or at least
+somewhat beyond three score and ten, and left behind them a good name
+and numerous descendants.
+
+How Alice found out her family in Virginia, we are not informed; but
+after a lapse of some years from the date of her marriage, there
+appears in one of her letters a reference to an estate inherited from
+her Tarleton ancestors, and her name appears in old records signed in
+full, Alice Tarleton Beverley. A descendant of hers still treasures the
+locket, with its broken miniature and battered crest, which won
+Beverley's life from Long-Hair, the savage. Beside it, as carefully
+guarded, is the Indian charm-stone that stopped Hamilton's bullet over
+Alice's heart The rapiers have somehow disappeared, and there is a
+tradition in the Tarleton family that they were given by Alice to
+Gaspard Roussillon, who, after Madame Roussillon's death in 1790, went
+to New Orleans, where he stayed a year or two before embarking for
+France, whither he took with him the beautiful pair of colechemardes
+and Jean the hunchback.
+
+Oncle Jazon lived in Vincennes many years after the war was over; but
+he died at Natchez, Mississippi, when ninety-three years old. He said,
+with almost his last breath, that he couldn't shoot very well, even in
+his best days; but that he had, upon various occasions, "jes' kind o'
+happened to hit a Injun in the lef' eye." They used to tell a story, as
+late as General Harrison's stay in Vincennes, about how Oncle Jazon
+buried his collection of scalps, with great funeral solemnity, as his
+part of the celebration of peace and independence about the year 1784.
+
+Good old Father Beret died suddenly soon after Alice's marriage and
+departure for Virginia. He was found lying face downward on the floor
+of his cabin. Near him, on a smooth part of a puncheon, were the
+mildewed fragments of a letter, which he had been arranging, as if to
+read its contents. Doubtless it was the same letter brought to him by
+Rene de Ronville, as recorded in an early chapter of our story. The
+fragments were gathered up and buried with him. His dust lies under the
+present Church of St. Xavier,--the dust of as noble a man and as true a
+priest as ever sacrificed himself for the good of humanity.
+
+In after years Simon Kenton visited Beverley and Alice in their
+Virginia home. To his dying day he was fond of describing their happy
+and hospitable welcome and the luxuries to which they introduced him.
+They lived in a stately white mansion on a hill overlooking a vast
+tobacco plantation, where hundreds of negro slaves worked and sang by
+day and frolicked by night. Their oldest child was named Fitzhugh
+Gaspard. Kenton died in 1836.
+
+There remains but one little fact worth recording before we close the
+book. In the year 1800, on the fourth of July, a certain leading French
+family of Vincennes held a patriotic reunion, during which a little old
+flag was produced and its story told. Some one happily proposed that it
+be sent to Mrs. Alice Tarleton Beverley with a letter of explanation,
+and in profound recognition of the glorious circumstances which made it
+the true flag of the great Northwest.
+
+And so it happened that Alice's little banner went to Virginia and is
+still preserved in an old mansion not very far from Monticello; but it
+seems likely that the Wabash Valley will soon again possess the
+precious relic. The marriage engagement of Miss Alice Beverley to a
+young Indiana officer, distinguished for his patriotism and military
+ardor, has been announced at the old Beverley homestead on the hill,
+and the high contracting parties have planned that the wedding ceremony
+shall take place under the famous little flag, on the anniversary of
+dark's capture of Post Vincennes. When the bride shall be brought to
+her new home on the banks of the Wabash, the flag will come with her;
+but Oncle Jazon will not be on hand with his falsetto shout: "VIVE LA
+BANNIERE D'ALICE ROUSSILLON! VIVE ZHORZZH VASINTON!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Alice of Old Vincennes, by Maurice Thompson
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