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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.
Very good, mon oncle; I'll obey orders. But remember that it will be the worse for you later on, unless you can show good and sufficient reason for this ridiculous mystery. Poor, dear mamma! how she will hate to be plucked up like an early radish. And thereupon Miss Betty sailed away with her small head tilted skyward.
"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.
"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."
This old bronco fancier's skelp is over on my bridle, if you thinks you'd know it. "'No, says Pickles, mighty onconcerned, 'it can't be my oncle nohow. If he's one of my fam'ly, it would be your ha'r on his bridle. It must be some old shorthorn of a Mohave you downs. Let's all take a drink on it.
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.
"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?
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."
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.
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.
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