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Updated: May 4, 2025
I have received an anonymous communication, Sergeant, advising me to be on my guard against Jasper Western, or Jasper Eau-douce, as he is called, who, it alleges, has been bought by the enemy, and giving me reason to expect that further and more precise information will soon be sent." "Letters without signatures to them, sir, are scarcely to be regarded in war." "Or in peace, Dunham.
Jasper drew nearer to the Sergeant, and took his hand, pressing it earnestly, and in a way to denote strong, almost uncontrollable feelings. "Sergeant Dunham," said he solemnly, "you are a good man, though you have treated me harshly in this business. You love your daughter?" "That you cannot doubt, Eau-douce," returned the Sergeant huskily.
"As the north shore lies only some five or six leagues from us, brother, and I know there is a large bay in that quarter, might it not be well to consult some of the crew concerning our position, if, indeed, we do not call up Jasper Eau-douce, and tell him to carry us back to Oswego? For it is quite impossible we should ever reach the station with this wind directly in our teeth."
Let no one think me a hindrance. I cannot bear that all your lives should be exposed on my account." "No, no, pretty one; we think you anything but a hindrance or anything that is unbecoming, and would willingly run twice this risk to do you and the honest Sergeant a service. Do I not speak your mind, Eau-douce?" "To do her a service!" said Jasper with emphasis.
Still she was the first to speak; since Eau-douce could utter naught that would be disingenuous, or that would pain his friend. "Pathfinder," said she, "you talk wildly. Why mention this at all?" "Well, Mabel, if I talk wildly, I am half wild, you know, by natur', I fear, as well as by habit."
"But now you've got the calash, lad, it's of no use to you," he added; "it will never make a sail, nor even an ensign. I'm thinking, Eau-douce, you'd no' be sorry to see its value in good siller of the king?" "Money cannot buy it, Lieutenant," returned Jasper, whose eye lighted with all the fire of success and joy.
Jasper Eau-douce started as a man flinches at sudden bodily pain; but he otherwise maintained his self-command. "And mankind is envious and ill-natured, more particularly in and about the garrisons.
"What does that mean, indeed?" cried the guide, stepping forward and shoving the two subordinates away with a power of muscle that would not be denied. "Who has the heart to do this to Jasper Eau-douce? And who has the boldness to do it before my eyes?" "It is by my orders, Pathfinder," answered the Quartermaster, "and I command it on my own responsibility.
The honest Sergeant has kept nothing back; for, being so many years my senior, he has looked on me, in our many scoutings together, as a sort of son." "Perhaps, Pathfinder," observed Jasper, with a huskiness in his voice that defeated the attempt at pleasantry, "he would be glad to have you for one in reality." "And if he did, Eau-douce, where would be the sin of it?
Not a syllable of the discourse just related had she heard; for Eau-douce, as young Jasper was oftener called than anything else, had been filling her ears with a description of the yet distant part towards which she was journeying, with accounts of her father, whom she had not seen since a child, and with the manner of life of those who lived in the frontier garrisons.
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